Re: st: string variable problem

[Pete Huckelba <huckelba@stata.com>]

Eric Uslaner wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have a string variable problem and I have looked high and low in the
> manual for a solution.  One variable in a data set is composed of both
> the name of a country and the year of a survey, such as:
>
> Albania2002
> Albania2005
> Serbia&Montenegro2002
> Serbia&Montenegro2005
>
> I want to drop the last four digits (there is already a variable called
> year).  I figured out how to drop the last four digits into another
> variable with substr but cannot figure out what to do to keep the
> country names (which vary in length) and drop the year.  Any help much
> appreciated (and I have spent an hour on this with the manual).  You can
> also respond to me directly since I get Statalist on digest.  Many
> thanks.
>
> Ric Uslaner
As with most Stata string manipulations there will be many solutions, 
but here's a one liner:

                         x
  1.           albania2002
  2.           albania2005
  3. serbia&montenegro2002
  4. serbia&montenegro2005

. gen y=reverse(substr(reverse(x),5,.))

. cl

                         x                  y
  1.           albania2002            albania
  2.           albania2005            albania
  3. serbia&montenegro2002  serbia&montenegro
  4. serbia&montenegro2005  serbia&montenegro


-Pete

--
Pete Huckelba
huckelba@stata.com


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