RE: st: 'Re-ordering' the labels of a variable

["Nick Cox" <n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk>]

Let's all be clear on various details here. 

1. -sencode- is user-written and downloadable from various sources, SJ, SSC and the author's (Roger Newson's) own website. The need to make this kind of detail clear is constant! 

2. The original purpose of -sencode- was _s_equential encoding in contrast to -encode-'s default alphabetic encoding. Unless you can be certain that first occurrences in the data match the desired ordering, then specifying -label()- _is_ essential for the desired outcome. Martin's example achieves that by construction; I saw nothing that made that certain to be true of Karen's data in the original post. 

3. Although -sencode- is undeniably useful, and its existence underlines a view elsewhere expressed that -encode- should be revisited by StataCorp to make it more comprehensive, I see nothing here that could not also be achieved directly with -encode-. 

Nick 
n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk 

Martin Weiss

No need to define the -label- beforehand:

*******
clear*

cap which sencode
if _rc ssc inst sencode

input str1 stringvar byte freq  
B 3 
A 5
H 5
S 6
Q 4
I 3
end

expand freq
sencode stringvar, gen(numvar)
list, noo

la li numvar
ta numvar

hist numvar, xlab(, valuelabel)
*******

Ronan Conroy

On 25 Márta 2010, at 10:30, Karen Wright wrote:

> I have a diagnosis (string) variable which can take the value: B, A,  
> H, S, Q or I.  Stata (10.0) cleverly changes this order to an  
> alphabetical order, however this does not make sense when trying to  
> display a simple histogram of the distribution.  I would like to  
> force stata to display them in my original order as it is sensible  
> when considering the ordering of the diagnosis catergories.

Use sencode, one of those utilities you simply must have. Define the  
label first, then use it to map the encoding.

. lab def dx 1 "B" 2 "A" 3 "H" 4 "S" 5 "Q" 6 "I",modify
. sencode dx, label(dx) replace



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