I'd like to randomly reorder (i.e., shuffle) the elements of a string
variable within each case.
For example,with a string variable of length 6
id s
1 abcdef
2 abcdef
3 abcdef
I'd like to produce, say:
id s
1 fecdab
2 cabfde
3 fbcade
The best approach I can come up with is to break the string into component str1 variables s1 to
s6, and then do
reshape long s, i(id) j(j)
gen tempran = uniform()
sort id tempran
by id: replace j = _n
drop tempran
reshape wide x, i(id) j(j)
Using -reshape- seems something of an overkill, and sorting on a random number is not a very
efficient shuffling algorithm for a long length string. I'm aware of -shuffle-, but it is designed
for a list rather than a variable. Can someone suggest a better approach?
Regards,
Mike Lacy
Fort Collins CO
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=
Mike Lacy, Ft Collins CO 80523
voice (970) 491-6721
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