Re: st: String function headache.

[Scott Talkington <talkings@gmu.edu>]

OK, this seemed to work.  But I'm not sure... why. :-)

forvalues x=1/6 {
foreach y in # {
replace mynumber`x'=strmatch(mystring`x',"*`y'*")
}
}

On 4/24/2011 11:45 PM, Scott Talkington wrote:
> I just can't seem to make this work.  What I want to do is search for 
> any occurrence of the "#" character in a string variable and set a 
> flag for that observation.  I'm searching 6 different strings labeled 
> something like mystring1 mystring2 etc. and the flags are mynumber1 
> mynumber2 etc..
>
> So my do file:
>
> forvalues x=1/6 {
> foreach y in # {
> replace mynumber `x'= strmatch(mistring`x', "`y'")
> }
> }
>
> I just listed one character in the y list above, but in reality I'm 
> not having a problem with normal strings like "APT" but with wildcards 
> and with the number sign character itself.
>
> I assumed that placing a "?" character iyn the search string (s2) 
> would match zero or one characters + the "#" but it seems to be 
> matching all strings with one character that are either a  number  or 
> a letter.  Huh?
>
> If I include the wildcard (either the asterisk or the question mark) 
> *anywhere* (either in the "foreach" part of the do file or in the 
> "replace" command) it just doesn't work the way I expect it to.  
> There's a difference between what I get depending on how many quotes I 
> use  and where as well, but I'm just not getting anything that does 
> what I want it to.  I've even tried using the backslash character to 
> indicate that I don't want the "#" to be read as an operator, but I'm 
> not even sure where to put the backslash or how to arrange the 
> quotation marks.  It's driving me nuts.  There's some rule here that 
> I'm just not getting.
>
> --Scott
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