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Re: st: trim spaces in postcode
Nick, thanks for the tip (I too have been specifying the string length when generating string variables).
A follow up question, I occasionally use -infile- and -input- both of which require that I explicitly give the length of
string variables that may be in my data. Usually I start with a wild guess say str30 and then compress after reading the
data in.
Is there something in newer versions of Stata that would save me from guessing the length of strings when using -infile-
and -input-
Ronnie
Nick Cox wrote:
A quibble on the side:
As it happens I guess no British postcode
is longer than 8 characters, but in
general this is dangerous, with greater
and lesser dangers.
Forget postcodes, and consider the possible
consequences of stipulating -str8-.
If I say
gen str8 whatever = "abcdefghi"
Stata assumes I mean what I say
and that I trust it to do the best
it can.
The consequence will be "abcdefgh"
everywhere, and no warning message.
The greater danger is thus loss of data.
If I say
gen str8 whatever = "foo"
the consequence is "foo" everywhere
and some wasted storage. That may be
trivial to you, but it is still avoidable.
I guess Emma has been using Stata for
a while and started when you _had_ to
specify a string type in generating
a string variable. For a few versions
past, that has no longer been compulsory.
It is best, in fact, not to do it, as
Stata is smarter at computing than you
are.
If I say
gen something = "foo"
-something- will be born -str3-.
Nick
[email protected]
Maurizio Gibin
Thank you Emma...
Easy and it's working!
Emma.Slaymaker
gen str8 newvar=subinstr(oldvar," ","",.)
if oldvar is your current postcode variable and newvar is a new one.
Maurizio.Gibin
I am trying to trim all the spaces in a code, in particular an english
unit postcode
but I still haven't found the correct way. I downloaded the ptseed
strip function but seems is not working.
Can anyone please help me? The database I am working on is quite
huge...
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