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Re: st: Help with string problem
you could also use the clean() function in excel first, which removes
all nonprintable characters, before pasting into stata.
rafal
Quoting Fred Wolfe <[email protected]>:
To see the difference, I used -outfile- and then examined the two
-apatkey-s at the hexadecimal level in a text editor. The key
variable that didn't merge contained HEX(AO) characters instead of
Hex(20). Hex(A0) is also a "blank" character (a "non-breaking space"
in MS office). In HEX the code was "20 A0 A0 22" or space NB-space
NB-space ". Somehow this must have been created in the Excel file
that was sent to me.
Fred
At 09:36 PM 8/24/2006, you wrote:
Someone sent me a list of IDs (apatkey)for participants registered in our
databank. They sent an Excel file (alas). I pasted it into Stata and later
used StatTransfer, both with the same result.
What I did was to save the IDs sent to me. Then I -used- my databank and
merged the new data in. The problem was that the merge didn't work as
people with the same apatkey didn't merge. Tracing this down, I found that
the length of the merged variable was different from the master variable.
It would seem that there are hidden characters in the case where
_merge == 2.
Questions. Does anyone know how to see those hidden characters? Is this a
known problem with the hated Excel?
. replace apatkey=trim(apatkey)
. l apat greger _merge length if index(apatkey, "CLE210928")
+-----------------------------------------+
| apatkey greger _merge length |
|-----------------------------------------|
28469. | CLE210928 . 1 9 |
74437. | CLE210928 1 2 12 |
+-----------------------------------------+
Thanks,
Fred
Fred Wolfe
National Data Bank for Rheumatic Diseases
Wichita, Kansas
Tel +1 316 263 2125
[email protected]
*
* 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/
Fred Wolfe
National Data Bank for Rheumatic Diseases
Wichita, Kansas
Tel +1 316 263 2125
[email protected]
*
* 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/
================
Rafal Raciborski
Graduate student
Department of Political Science
Emory University
301 Tarbutton Hall
1555 Dickey Drive Atlanta, GA 30322
404-315-7498 (home)
[email protected]
http://www.roofoos.net/
*
* 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/
