st: nearmrg for strings (titles)

["Hoecher, Michaela (0613xxx)" <michaela.hoecher@edu.uni-graz.at>]

Hello!
 
I would like to merge two datasets (variables: title, date, publisher). 
The problems is, that strings (tiltes of a book), that are not absolutely the same sould be merged/matched. 
- Does it make sense to use nearmrg for this?
- In which way are strings merged/matched? 
- What would you recommend me?
 
- I wanted to test nearmrg, but I got an error message "type mismatch":

string_masterfile.dta
+--------------------------------------+ 
| id      name        gender       age 
|---------------------------------------
| 5       franzi            1           23   
| 1       meli              1           32   
| 2       michaela       1           20   
| 6       ali                 2           25  
| 3       christ            2           20   
| 4       martin           2           44  
+--------------------------------------+

string_matchfile2.dta
+---------------------------------------+ 
| id      name        gender       age  
|----------------------------------------
| 5       franzi          1               13  
| 1       michi          1               15  
| 2       susi            1               22  
| 4       ali              2               25  
| 3       chris          2                20  
| 5       felix           2                43  
+---------------------------------------+

When I use the command: 
      nearmrg gender using string_matchfile2.dta, nearvar(name) lower genmatch(samename) 
or 
      nearmrg gender using string_matchfile2.dta, nearvar(name) lower force genmatch(samename)
 
I geht the error message: "type mismatch"
 
 
Thanks a lot!!! Michi
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