On 9/12/07, Ms. Marilyn Ibarra <[email protected]> wrote:
> I need to destring a variable 'foreign_id' so I can declare a dataset to be panel as follows:
>
> xtset foreign_id year, yearly
>
> However, my variable 'foreign_id' is constructed as follows:
>
> firm foreign_id
> 1 5011x
> 1 5011x
> 1 5011x
> 2 0017
> 2 0017
> 2 0017
> etc.
>
> I guess the solution is to get rid of the 'x' part. Anyone know how I can easily do this so I am left with:
>
>
> firm foreign_id
> 1 5011
> 1 5011
> 1 5011
> 2 0017
> 2 0017
> 2 0017
>
>
-man string functions- shows that you could use the -subinstr()-
function to achieve this....
gen _t = subinstr(foreign_id, "x", "", .)
drop foreign_id
rename _t foreign_id
Neil
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