Re: st: RE: Changing variable name to variable label

[Michael Norman Mitchell <Michael.Norman.Mitchell@gmail.com>]

Dear Daniel

  Indeed, I think that Martin is on the right track... here is some 
sample code

clear
sysuse auto
unab vlist : *
display "`vlist'"
foreach varname of local vlist {
  local varlabel : variable label `varname'
  mata : vl = st_local("varlabel")
  mata : newvarname = strtoname(vl)
  mata : st_local("varname2",newvarname)
  rename `varname' `varname2'
}

describe , full

  I know this could be done better using more mata, but I hope it helps

Michael N. Mitchell
See the Stata tidbit of the week at...
http://www.MichaelNormanMitchell.com

On 2010-04-12 1.24 PM, Martin Weiss wrote:
> <>
>
> *******
> help mf_strtoname
> *******
>
> 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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