st: managing changing variable names, types over multiple files

[Paul Burkander <paul@burkander.com>]

Hi all,

I'm working with data that cover several years, with a separate file
for each year.  Unfortunately, the names and types of variables
sometimes change from year to year, making it difficult to append all
the files.  There are a large number of variables, so it's difficult
to check for changes by hand.  Also, we'll be getting more years in
the future, so I'd like to, as much as possible, automate a system
that catalogs variable names and types.

I'm envisioning a system where we have a macro with the names of all
the files, then loop over each file, capture all the variable names
and types, and dump it into a master variable attributes file.  I'm
imagining a different variable for each row/attribute, so there'd be a
2007varname and a 2008vartype, for instance.  There would also be a
mastervarname for what we want the variable to me.  Each row would
correspond to the variable whose name may or may not change over time.

Does this seem like a reasonable way to automate this?  Do any of you
have any other ideas?  are there any user written programs that can
aid in this process?

I'd greatly appreciate any suggestions!

Paul

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