st: RE: Changing variable name to variable label

["Martin Weiss" <martin.weiss1@gmx.de>]

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comes to mind...


HTH
Martin

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
[mailto:owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] On Behalf Of Daniel Jones
Sent: Montag, 12. April 2010 22:18
To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
Subject: st: Changing variable name to variable label

I have a set of repeated cross sections (10 years) which I would like to
combine into a single dataset. The problem is that the variable names are
different across years -- it's a survey, so a variable I need might be
called "Q13" one year and "Q17" the next. 

Variable labels seem to be constant across years, so I thought a solution
might be to rename the the variables on the basis of their labels. I found a
previous Statalist posting which describes such a procedure. However, for
this to work, variable labels need to already be appropriately formatted to
be variable names -- i.e., no spaces, etc. My variable labels are of the
form "Education Volunteer - Past 12 Months." I'm assuming there's a way to
remove spaces, etc. from variable labels, and then make them the variable
names -- but I don't know what it is.

Alternatively, it seems like there could be a simpler solution to merging
all of these years together. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks,
Daniel
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