Re: st: removing leading blanks

[Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com>]

I find the elements of your report difficult to reconcile. You imply
that -charlist- gives no output, which is not the case.

Nick

On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 1:42 PM, Abhimanyu Arora
<abhimanyu.arora1987@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Nick
> Thanks for the tip.
> I followed your suggestions but somehow still am unable to get things right.
> Here are the steps I followed together with the displayed output.
> Charlist rules out non-blank spaces, but-subinstr- with char(9) or "
> ", both do not yield the desired outcome.
>
> . count
>   10
>
> . gen problem=substr(var1,1,4)
>
> . charlist problem
>
>
> . replace var1 = subinstr(var1, char(9), "", .)
> (0 real changes made)
>
>
> Now,
>
> . replace var1 = subinstr(var1, " ", "",. )
> (10 real changes made)
>
> . gen problem2=substr(var1,1,3) *It seems the 10 changes are basically
> left trimming by 1 leading blank space*
>
> . charlist problem2
>
>
> . replace var1 = subinstr(var1, " ", "",. ) *Similar recursive steps
> as above does not seem to work out*
> (0 real changes made)
>
> Cheers
> Abhimanyu
>
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 5:34 PM, Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com> wrote:
>> What you describe as blanks may be some other character(s).
>>
>> -charlist- (SSC) is a utility which may help.
>>
>> gen problem = substr(var1, 1, 4)
>>
>> charlist problem
>>
>> After finding out which characters are present, use code such as
>>
>> replace var1 = subinstr(var1, char(9), "", .)
>>
>> where 9 is a placeholder for the argument you need. (char(9) is a tab,
>> and the characters might just be a tab.)
>>
>> Nick
>>
>> On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 11:54 AM, Abhimanyu Arora
>> <abhimanyu.arora1987@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> All values of a string variable, var1, have 4 blank spaces in the beginning.
>>> However, when I type in the command
>>> -replace var1=ltrim(var1)- ,
>>>  the output displays "0 real changes made" (and needless to say,
>>> things remain as they were to start with)
>>> Would be really great if this puzzling issue is sorted out.
>>
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>
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