st: re: destring var, replace dpcomma

[Kit Baum <baum@bc.edu>]

Olga writes

My data contains comma's as decimal points.
It looks like:

 RMR     EV      T
5,48    6,1   12,7
6,13      6   12,7

I want to destring it and replace comma with a period.


As Olga is coming from a part of the world where that is proper  
numeric punctuation, she should try

set dp period

and see what happens.  For instance, if I (with an Anglo-American  
version of Stata) do

set dp comma


>     Variable |       Obs        Mean    Std. Dev.       Min        Max
> -------------+--------------------------------------------------------
>         make |         0
>        price |        74    6165,257    2949,496       3291      15906
>          mpg |        74     21,2973    5,785503         12         41
>        rep78 |        69    3,405797    ,9899323          1          5
>     headroom |        74    2,993243    ,8459948        1,5          5

I see commas where I am accustomed to see periods (full stops).


Kit Baum, Boston College Economics and DIW Berlin
http://ideas.repec.org/e/pba1.html
An Introduction to Modern Econometrics Using Stata:
http://www.stata-press.com/books/imeus.html


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