-- Re: st: Writing out Names with special signs or words -- Can't write

[Nick Winter <nw53@cornell.edu>]

You need to use compound double quotation marks to wrap up the strings-- 
that is, `" before and "' after.

  . gen x = `"abc " def"'

This will deal with strings that have quotation marks (") in them.

  . gen y = `"abc ` def"'
  too few quotes
  r(132);

However, this will not work for strings that have an open-single-quote (`) 
in them.  Wrapping *those* strings in regular double quotes works.


  . gen y = "abc ` def"

Any ideas on the list on how to deal with both?

If you are reading these from a text file, you might use -filefilter- to 
change all the single open quotes (`) to some other character combination, 
read in the lines, then change them back.  Something like:

  . filefilter inputfile tempfile , from("\LQ") to("[opensinglequote]")

  ...do input using tempfile...

  . replace x = subinstr(x,"[opensinglequote]","`",.)





At 11:21 AM 3/17/2006, you wrote:

> Dear Austin,
>
> Thanks for sending me the example. Unfortunately, I can replicate the results.
>
> I write down a small DO file, writing all 33 examples of names as in my 
> first posting,
> but the program starts to have error messeages. For example:
>
> (1) Example 1
> gen x30= ""CDC POINT - S.P.A. (ANCHE IN FORM";
>
> -- error message is:   . gen x30= ""CDC POINT - S.P.A. (ANCHE IN FORM"
> invalid 'POINT'
> r(198);
>
> (2) Example 2:
> . gen x34= "Weird Combination (quotes "-and hyphen' a]pos`trophe 1-d_5."
> and not found
> r(111);
>
> Writing out to text file:
> file open wot2 using L:\wtest3.txt, write append
>
> . file write wot2 _n "`x[1]'"
>
> . file write wot2 _n "` x[2] '"
>
> And the text file only show blanks lines !!
>
> I have more than one million names to do, so it is almost impossible to 
> search for weird
> combinations of signs manually.
>
> Similarly, the same problems also exist when I "chop" the names into parts 
> and compare
> those parts to other names' part.
>
> But many thanks for your example code.
>
>
> Akihito
>
> ----------------------
>
> > From: "Austin Nichols" <austinnichols@gmail.com>
> > Reply-To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
> > To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
> > Subject: Re: st: Writing out Names with special signs or words
> > Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 16:13:32 -0500
> >
> > There's no reason you shouldn't be able to write out the strings you
> > have shown, but it's possible that by pasting the strings into email,
> > you have stripped out some problematic characters.
> > ____________________
> > set obs 1
> > gen x="`IPAD AD DOBOJ"
> > file open f using /f.txt, write replace
> > file write f _n "`=x[1]'"
> > file close _all
> > type /f.txt
> >
> > `IPAD AD DOBOJ
> > ____________________
> > works, so the string as shown is fine.  Do you need the special
> > characters in the names--they are not readable as is, anyway, right?
> > Unless you specify a Bosnian font for only the Bosnian names, which is
> > not possible for most applications. If you don't need them, see
> > -findit charlist- for a way to identify them and then zap them with
> > (for example) the subinstr() function.
> >
> > *
> > *   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/
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--------------------------------------------------------
Nicholas Winter                           607.255.8819 t
Assistant Professor                       607.255.4530 f
Department of Government              nw53@cornell.edu e
308 White Hall            falcon.arts.cornell.edu/nw53 w
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853-4601


*
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