st: parsing degree minute second

["Ben Hoen" <bhoen@lbl.gov>]

Hello statalisters,

I am trying to extract portions of a string "latitude" (in degree minute
seconds) so that I can convert it to decimal degrees.  I have not been able
to get the extraction to work; the ".list" returns null sets for all the
latdd* variables.  Can anyone see my error?

clear all
input str20 latitude
"39 - 46 - 21.02  N"
"39 - 44 - 58.66  N"
"118 - 06 - 27.95  N"
end
gen latdd1=regexs(1) if regexm(latitude, "(([0-9]+)[\ - ]([0-9]+)[\ -
]([0-9]+[\.][0-9]+))")
gen latdd2=regexs(2) if regexm(latitude, "(([0-9]+)[\ - ]([0-9]+)[\ -
]([0-9]+[\.][0-9]+))")
gen latdd3=regexs(3) if regexm(latitude, "(([0-9]+)[\ - ]([0-9]+)[\ -
]([0-9]+[\.][0-9]+))")
list

Thank you in advance for any help you can offer.

Ben


Ben Hoen
Principal Research Associate
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Office: 845-758-1896
Cell: 718-812-7589
bhoen@lbl.gov
http://eetd.lbl.gov/ea/emp/staff/hoen.html



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