Re: st: creating a text file with a specific format

[Austin Nichols <austinnichols@gmail.com>]

Michael Eisenberg <meisenberg713@gmail.com>:
replace lastname=substr(lastname,1,20)
*etc, then:
ssc install outfixt

On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 9:56 AM, Michael Eisenberg
<meisenberg713@gmail.com> wrote:
> Colleagues,
>
> I have to prepare a file for a linkage project, and I’m hoping stata can assist.
>
> Currently my data is in a stata data file.
>
> The linkage company requires a set format of data in a plain text format.
>
> The format assumes 100 characters per line. Where () represents which
> line characters are assigned to a given field.   If a variable has
> more characters than the designated number of characters, it is to be
> truncated
>
> (1-20) LAST NAME
> (21-35) FIRST NAME
> (36) MIDDLE INITIAL
> (37-45) SSN
> (46-47) MONTH OF BIRTH
> (48-49) DAY OF BIRTH
> (50-53) YEAR OF BIRTH
>
> The data currently looks like this
>
> Lastname  firstname  middlename   SSN           MonOB   DaOB    YrOB
> Smith   John             Thomas 122342789            01 04              1947
> Jones   Craig   Harvey  600656785            10 24              1957
> Stata           Jim             Smith   423456751            12 06              1970
> Johnson Mike            Thomas  056445671     01        16              1971
>
> Can Stata perform such a transformation?  If not, are there other
> programs that could be recommended.
>
> Thank you in advance.
>
> Mike

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