Nick, thanks for this. The main issue is still unclear: is there a
limit on the size of number that can be labeled?
My suggestion of mvencode and the other similar recodes are the way to
go.
On Wed, 8 Oct 2008, Nick Cox wrote:
:No; this is backward. It's the argument that is problematic, not the
:result.
:
:The possible length of the value label, i.e. a string, is not biting
:here. It is the fact that you are dealing with a large integer, on which
:more is said elsewhere.
:
:The refusal of -tostring- to produce a string variable in your example
:is easy to explain. -tostring- is a wrapper for -string(<real argument>,
:"<format>")- with several safety checks and constraints. The format
:defaults to %12.0g. Some experiments show that you need a different
:format for the conversion of 9...9 (12 digits) to be reversible.
:
:. di string(999999999999, "%12.0g")
:1.00000e+12
:
:. di string(999999999999, "%13.0g")
:1.000000e+12
:
:. di string(999999999999, "%14.0g")
:999999999999
:
:So, -tostring- will work as desired here so long as a suitable
:-format()- is specified.
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