Re: st: how to attach labels to string values

[Stephen Martin <stephen.martin@york.ac.uk>]

Thanks Nick.

Steve

On 04/07/2012, Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com> wrote:
> Stata does not let you attach value labels to string variables. You
> can use -merge- to bring the new text into your main dataset as a new
> string variable. If need be you can then -encode- it. -labmask- (SJ)
> and -sencode- (SJ) are other utilities in this territory. The strategy
> is to see whether -encode- does what you want; if not then -labmask-
> or -sencode- may offer what you want.
>
> It depends on what you want to do, but two numeric variables with
> different value labels can be used more widely than two string
> variables.
>
> Nick
>
> On Wed, Jul 4, 2012 at 12:13 PM, Stephen Martin
> <stephen.martin@york.ac.uk> wrote:
>> I have a variable with a three digit hospital operation code.  The
>> first digit is always a letter and the other two digits are always
>> numeric (eg A10, R45, V89).
>>
>> I have another file with a very brief description of the meaning of
>> each of these codes.  I would like to use this information to attach
>> labels to the operation code but the latter are not integers so I
>> believe that I can't use label define lblname # "label" [# "label"
>> ...].
>>
>> Is there an easier way around this apart from, say, replacing the
>> first digit in the operation code with a number (i.e., replace A with
>> 1, B with 2,...)?
>>
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