st: Replacing grouped string values with longest string value in the group

["McDermaid, Cameron" <Cameron.McDermaid@ottawa.ca>]

Stata 11 SE and a new STATA user

I want to replace string values in a group to the longest string value
from the same variable within the group.

I have a dataset with a number of symptoms that come from different
hospitals. Because of differences in coding practices and errors, there
can be differences in values (e.g. spelling).  I will not know how many
symptom values will be present in a given data set and the symptom
values are always strings. I've grouped the variables by soundex code
and want to use the longest Symptom value to replace the shorter ones in
the group. 

The intent is to write an ado file that anyone can run with minimum
interfacing to generate frequencies of Symptoms after they've been
processed as above.

I've processed the data such that the longest value by slike(soundex)
group is flagged:

Symptom	                	|slike	|slength	|slongest
ALTEREDLEVELOFCONSCIOUSNESS	|A436		|27		|1
ALTERED CONSCIOUSNESS		|A436		|20		|0
ALTERED CONSCIOUSNESS		|A436		|20		|0
BLURREDVISION			|B463		|13		|1
CONVULSIONS				|C514		|11
|1
DIZZY					|D200		|5
|1
DIZZINESS/VERTIGO			|D252		|17
|1
DIZZY/VERTIGO			|D252		|13		|0

In this instance ALTEREDLEVELOFCONSCIOUSNESS should replace ALTERED
CONSCIOUSNESS and DIZZINESS/VERTIGO should replace DIZZY/VERTIGO.

My approach has been:

.levelsof slike, local(sound)   
.foreach 1 of local sound {      
.if slike=="`1'" & slongest==1 {    
.local name=Symptom		 
.}
.replace Symptom="`name'" if slike=="`1'" & slongest==0   
.}

What appears to be happening is that the local macro `name' does not get
re-assigned with the Symptom value corresponding to the next level of
slike in the foreach loop.  All values of Symptom with an slongest value
of 0 are recoded to the first symptom: ALTEREDLEVELOFCONSCIOUSNESS

I suspect my approach is close, but the loop is failing to function as I
expected.  Any suggestions or alternate approaches would be greatly
appreciated.

- cam

--
Cameron McDermaid MHSc
Epidemiologist
Ottawa Public Health
100 Constellation Cr, Ottawa ON K2G 6J8
vox: 613.580.6744x15321
fax: 613.580.9601

You can't fix by analysis what you bungled by design -  Light, Singer,
and Willett




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