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Re: st: Selecting variables based on variable labels
From
Nick Cox <[email protected]>
To
[email protected]
Subject
Re: st: Selecting variables based on variable labels
Date
Sat, 8 Sep 2012 02:25:45 +0100
Look at -ds- (official) or -findname- (SJ). The latter is more versatile.
Example:
findname, varlabeltext(TYPE OF RESIDENCE*)
Nick
On Sat, Sep 8, 2012 at 2:09 AM, Mitch Downey <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. There are several
> series of variables where the same question was asked over multiple years.
> E.g.,
>
> R0188000 TYPE OF RESIDENCE R IS LIVING 79
> R0402800 TYPE OF RESIDENCE R IS LIVING 80
> R0612100 TYPE OF RESIDENCE R IS LIVING 81
> R0828400 TYPE OF RESIDENCE R IS LIVING 82
> R1075700 TYPE OF RESIDENCE R IS LIVING 83
> R1451400 TYPE OF RESIDENCE R IS LIVING 84
> R1798600 TYPE OF RESIDENCE R IS LIVING 85
> R2160200 TYPE OF RESIDENCE R IS LIVING 86
> R2369100 TYPE OF RESIDENCE R IS LIVING 87
>
> where R0188000 is the variable name and TYPE OF RESIDENCE R IS LIVING 79
> is the variable label. Unfortunately, the variable names are random. This
> makes it impossible to select a group of variables using res* (for
> instance) or res79-res87. The only way I can find this group of variables
> is by typing
> -- lookfor "TYPE OF RESIDENCE R IS LIVING" --
>
> I would like to identify a list of variables using the lookfor command and
> either create a list or rename them in a sequential way. Is there a way to
> do this? Can you build a variable list from lookfor results? My ultimate
> goal is to make the dataset long format, so if anyone has and idea to
> shortcut straight to that, I'm all ears.
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