st: Unable to use "replace" on specific values (but others work ok)

[Anna Reimondos <areimondos@gmail.com>]

Hello statalisters,
I am currently coding occupations of respondents in a survey to the
Australian New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations
(ANZSCO).
A rather odd thing is happening where I am able to assign the ANZSCO
code in some cases, but not others!


For example in the code below there is no problem assigning the value
121312 to case 1, and no problem assigning the value 121314 to case 2.
However for case 3 who I want to give the code 121313 the code returns
an error message '121313 invalid name' r(198).

clear
set obs 3
gen var1=.
replace var1=121312 if _n==1
replace var1=121314 if _n==2

replace var1=121313 if _n==3  //Problem

The problem is not just with 121313, but it also does not seem to like
254499, 323112 and 821311 among others.
I don't understand what is happening!

I am using Stata 12.1, but have also tried this in 11.2 and get the
same error code.

Thanks


Anna

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