Re: st: how does insheet determine datatypes?

[Phil Schumm <pschumm@uchicago.edu>]

On Jan 7, 2007, at 12:09 PM, Nick Cox wrote:
> 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.

Thanks for pointing that out -- I should have written the example  
that way.  Production code would of course need this even with a  
function to generate Stata names, to account for the possibility of  
duplicate names (either because of duplicate names in the data file  
or because a name in the file clashes with one of the automatic names  
Stata generates when -nonames- is used (i.e., v1, v2, ...)).

I gather from your response that you are unaware of an exposed  
function to generate Stata names from an existing string?


-- Phil

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