This particular problem can be avoided by using -capture-
as a prefix.
capture ren `var' `=`var'[1]'
will eat the error if the first value is not a valid new
variable name. Alternatively you could use -confirm-
directly.
Nick
[email protected]
Phil Schumm
> If you want to avoid having to edit your data file(s), and assuming
> the first row contains variable names each of which contains
> at least
> one non-numeric character, you can also simply use the -nonames-
> option and then use something like the following:
>
>
> foreach var of varlist _all {
> ren `var' `=`var'[1]'
> }
> drop in 1
>
>
> Of course this will result in *all* your data being read as
> strings.
> However, this is sometimes desirable, as for example when you
> need to
> read and append several files and want to make certain that no data
> are lost due to appending a numeric variable onto a string variable
> (or vice versa). In cases where this is not desirable, a
> single call
> to -destring- is all that is necessary to restore one or more
> variables to numeric.
>
> I mention this only because it raises two interesting questions (at
> least to me). First, note that the rename above will fail if the
> original variable name (as appears in the first row of the
> data file)
> is not a valid Stata name.
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