The delimiter between names and addresses is "tab" (well, it was "comma" in the previous message but it's easy to change it to "tab", which is less confusing) ; the delimiter among address (or names) themselves is "|". Because the number of addresses (and names) varies across rows, I will need a program to read across rows, count the number of "|" between two tabs and create as many new columns as the max number of "|" (+1) across rows. Then put everything between two "|" in one of the new columns. I guess I will have to do this in a different program/text editor, unless someone suggests a solution.
---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 15:38:18 -0400
>From: "Friedrich Huebler" <[email protected]>
>Subject: Re: st: importing LONG string variables
>To: [email protected]
>
>Sergiy Radyakin <[email protected]> wrote:
>> The idea with replacing separators in a text editor is good, but might
>> be quite difficult for 600 files that Denisa has. It can be automated
>> of course, say with a macro in Word, but why not to write the whole
>> conversion in another programming environment?
>
>A good text editor (see "Some notes on text editors for Stata users",
>http://fmwww.bc.edu/repec/bocode/t/textEditors.html) or a program like
>Windows Grep can process many files in one go without the need for
>macros or additional programming.
>
>Mindruta, Denisa Constanta <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Friedrich, you got right to the point: but, unfortunately, with the
>> method that you suggested I won't be able to align the information
>> properly. Is there any way of telling Stata to leave a blank on V3
>> Row1 and move Address1 in V4?
>
>I do not see how this is possible given the format of your original
>data. Can you define a rule that identifies which fields should be
>left blank? How should Stata distinguish between names and addresses,
>for example? Even a human would sometimes have difficulties to know
>which string is part of a name and which string part of an address.
>Take this line:
>
>Denisa,Constanta,Mindruta,Street
>
>Does this mean that the name of the person is Denisa Constanta
>Mindruta, living in a street with a missing name? Or is this a person
>by the name Denisa Constanta, with the third name missing, living in
>Mindruta Street? To be unambiguous, your original data should contain
>one of the following lines, with missing values clearly identified by
>the delimiters.
>
>Denisa,Constanta,Mindruta,,Street
>Denisa,Constanta,,Mindruta,Street
>
>Friedrich
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