RE: st: identifying strings that differ on one or two letters

[Julian Reif <jreif@uchicago.edu>]

Dalhia,

Unfortunately, as Nick pointed out, your platform is currently not supported by -strgroup-. This is because the nature of plugins requires that I recompile them for all possible platforms in order to use them on that platform.  The only way I know how to do this is to actually obtain access to the platform in question, install a gcc-compliant compiler if necessary (Linux and Mac OS's tend to include have these by default while Windows does not), and then recompile the code.  I do not have access to your platform; thus I cannot compile my plugin for it.  If anybody knows an easier way to do this, please share.

Alternatively, if somebody has access to Dalhia's platform and is willing to compile the plugin for her, I am happy to send my C code to him or her and then upload the compiled plugin file to the SSC archive.

Julian


> Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2010 16:16:12 +0000
> From: Nick Cox <n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk>
> Subject: RE: st: identifying strings that differ on one or two letters
> 
> On -strgroup-, the pertiment information appears to be within the help file:
> 
> "strgroup is implemented as a plugin in order to minimize memory requirements and to maximize speed.  Unfortunately, plugins are specific to the hardware
>    architecture and software framework of your computer, i.e., plugins are not cross-platform.  Define a platform by two characteristics: machine type and operating
>    system.  Stata stores these characteristics in c(machine_type) and c(os), respectively. strgroup supports the following platforms at this time:
> 
>         Machine type                   Operating system
>         PC                             Windows
>         PC (64-bit x86-64)             Unix
>         Macintosh                      MacOSX
>         Macintosh (Intel 64-bit)       MacOSX"
> 
> The message appears to imply that your platform is not supported. 
> 
> On -soundex()- evidently that function classifies more coarsely than you need. 
> 
> These string matching problems are very difficult to automate in the sense of replicating what a knowledgeable human would do. 
> 
> Nick 
> n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk 
> 
> Dalhia
> 
> I tried both techniques suggested by the list (thank you Dmitry and Scott). But neither seem to work, and I am hoping you can tell me what is wrong. 
> 
> I can't seem to load "strgroup." When I try to install it on stata 11, it gives me the following message:
> 
> "package does not contain strgroup.plugin for WIN64A platform could not load strgroup.pkg from http://fmwww.bc.edu/RePEc/bocode/s/";
> 
> I'm sure there is a simple fix, but my stata code knowledge is very basic, and I'm not sure how to fix this problem. 
> 
> I also tried Soundex, but it identifies completely different companies as the same. For example, suniti commercials ltd, sunnytex investments pvt ltd, sunteck realty & infrastructure ltd, syndicate bank, all get the same soundex code S532. And soundex does not seem to allow any options that might limit matches to names that are very similar. 


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