Re: st: drop redundant value labels

[Ronnie Babigumira <rb.glists@gmail.com>]

Thanks Maarten and Austin.

Ronnie Babigumira wrote:
> I am merging a number of datasets. Each of the categorical variables in these datasets has value labels, however, what I 
> would like to do is to only retain the value labels for the variables that end up in any given merged dataset.
>
> As an example,
>
> I merge two files, and keep four variables
>
> Contains data from sec3.dta
>    obs:         9,946
>   vars:             4                          14 Feb 2008 13:49
>   size:       159,136 (99.8% of memory free)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>                storage  display     value
> variable name   type   format      label      variable label
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> hhid            str9   %9s
> literacy        byte   %29.0g      litlbl     Literacy Status
> apprentice      byte   %35.0g      applbl     Apprentice-ship
> training        byte   %29.0g      trnlbl     Training
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Sorted by:
>       Note:  dataset has changed since last saved
>
> However, this dataset retains labels from the parent datasets
> . label dir
> occlbl
> indlbl
> sexlbl
> worklbl
> pjoblbl
> peduclbl
> edlbl
> marlbl
> relalbl
> litlbl
> applbl
> trnlbl
>
> What I would like to do is keep only litlbl applbl trnlbl. Obviously, I could simply -label drop- the ones I am not 
> interested in but I was hoping for a generalized solution that does not require me to type all the ones that are dropped 
> (I am working with many tables).
>
> My thoughts (with no idea how to make them happen)
> 1. Save the names of all the variables in the final data set (something like `r(varlist)' from -describe-)
> 2. Create a local macro called tokeep which is `r(varlist)' less variables that do not have value labels
> 3. Drop every value label that is in not in `tokeep'
>
> I would appreciate any help
>
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