I agree with Nick's suggestion.
I'm not 100% sure but I think this would be easier:
gen asd=site+substr("00"+siteid,-3,3)
If there are embedded blanks you can just do -trim(siteid)- and
-trim(site)- (see help strfun)
Sergio
On 11/24/05, Richard Palmer-Jones <[email protected]> wrote:
> * if your variables are strvar1 & strvar2
> gen str6 newvar = ""
> qui des
> local N = r(N)
> forval i = 1/`N' {
> local t1 = strvar1[`i']
>
> local t2 = strvar2[`i']
> local leng2 = length("`t2'")
> local dum2 = ""
> if `leng2' == 1 {
> local dum2 = "00"
> }
> else if `leng2' == 2 {
> local dum2 = "0"
> }
> local var = "`t1'`dum2'`t2'"
> replace newvar = "`var'" in `i'
> }
> list
>
> | strvar1 strvar2 newvar |
> |----------------------------|
> 1. | B 1 B001 |
> 2. | B 120 B120 |
> 3. | CCH 7 CCH007 |
> 4. | CCH 23 CCH023 |
> 5. | CCH 213 CCH213 |
> |----------------------------|
> 6. | UW 23 UW023 |
> 7. | UW 232 UW232 |
>
> Richard
>
> On 11/24/05, Ian Watson <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Clare
> >
> > I've reproduced your problem and compared it with yesterday's solution
> > and can only come up with one suggestion.
> >
> > When you infile the string and then split it, using the substr function,
> > the right hand component (which I called num in yesterday's post) has
> > leading blanks on it. These are then replaced by leading 0s using the
> > subinstr function.
> >
> > However, when you infile the string as two strings, Stata possibly
> > strips the leading blanks from it. Even though it has the designation of
> > a str3 type, it may not have the same "contents" as num did (which was
> > also a str3 type) because that latter was created from substr. That
> > is " 23" and "23" look the same on the screen, but they're not the same
> > data.
> >
> > This is only a guess, and I can't find an easy way to test it. But it
> > suggests you're better off reading your string in as a full string, then
> > splitting it, rather than as two strings. At least that works (even if
> > the reason is not altogether clear to me why).
> >
> > --
> > Kind regards,
> > Ian
> >
> > -------------------------------
> > Ian Watson
> > Senior Researcher
> > acirrt, University of Sydney
> > NSW, 2006, Australia
> >
> > phone: 02 9351 5622
> > email:[email protected]
> > www.acirrt.com
> > -------------------------------
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Clare L Maxwell wrote:
> > > Hello again to the Statlist writers.
> > >
> > > This is a reprise of a problem I asked about yesterday, involving a
> > > 6-place string subject identifier that is read in from an ASCII file. In
> > > the ASCII file, this is how the data look:
> > >
> > > B 1
> > > B 120
> > > CCH 7
> > > CCH 23
> > > CCH213
> > > UW 23
> > > UW 232
> > >
> > > I want to turn them into a variable that looks like this:
> > >
> > > B001
> > > B120
> > > CCH007
> > > CCH023
> > > CCH213
> > > UW023
> > > UW232
> > >
> > > I had two very helpful recommendations on how to accomplish this.
> > > However, the results were not as hoped.
> > >
> > > I read the data into Stata as two str3 variables:
> > >
> > > infile dictionary using "/Projects/Christina/HNS/Stata/data/cm1.raw" {
> > > str3 site %3s
> > > str3 siteid %3s
> > > ...... many more vars
> > > }
> > >
> > > I was surprised when they looked like this in Stata:
> > >
> > > site siteid
> > > B 1
> > > B 120
> > > CCH 7
> > > CCH 23
> > > CCH 213
> > > UW 23
> > > UW 232
> > >
> > > In other words, now they both appeared as right justified once they had
> > > been read in (siteid was that way before in the ASCII file).
> > >
> > > This saved me the trouble of manipulating site. However, when I tried
> > > to left pad siteid with zeros, as suggested by Ian Watson and Nick Cox:
> > >
> > > replace siteid = subinstr(siteid," ","0",.)
> > >
> > > I got the message that zero replacements have been made. When I
> > > concatenated the site and siteid to get my final ID variable, I got the
> > > following:
> > >
> > > B1
> > > B120
> > > CCH7
> > > CCH23
> > > CCH213
> > > UW23
> > > UW232
> > >
> > > This is similar to problems I was having before my original letter.
> > > There must be something I do not understand how blanks are treated in
> > > string variables created this way. In the ASCII file, these variables
> > > are not enclosed in quotation marks to signify that they are string
> > > variables. I just say string and how long when they are read in. I
> > > later merge three files by these IDs plus dates, and in order to do
> > > that, I have to compress the files. I thought compression might have
> > > been the problem. Sadly, not compressing did not resolve this. I also
> > > just updated Stata. No change. Can anyone shed more light?
> > >
> > > Thank you very much for your help.
> > >
> > > Yours truly,
> > > Clare Maxwell
> > > *
> > > * For searches and help try:
> > > * http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
> > > * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
> > > * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > *
> > * For searches and help try:
> > * http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
> > * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
> > * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
> >
>
> *
> * For searches and help try:
> * http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
> * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
> * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
>
*
* For searches and help try:
* http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
* http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
