st: reclink type mismatch error

[Richard Herron <richard.c.herron@gmail.com>]

I get a "type mismatch" error using the current version of SSC's
-reclink-. This is the same error as a post from two weeks ago
(http://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/2012-10/msg00290.html -- new
code from the author resolved this error). The call and error are:

* begin console output
. reclink initials full_name first_name last_name  ///
>     using $DATADIR/finance_faculty, ///
>     idmaster(index_rm) idusing(index_ff) gen(score) ///
>     orblock(initials)

48 perfect matches found

Going through 166316 observation to assess fuzzy matches, each .=5% complete
.............type mismatch
r(109);
* end console output

For what it's worth, I converted the using file from unicode to ascii
using Python (it is scraped from a website) before generating the .dta
file in Stata. I converted the master file from a SAS data file to a
Stata data file using SAS (it comes from Wharton's WRDS database), but
I am not sure of its encoding.

Is there a way to guarantee the master data file is ascii, also? Or is
there a way to troubleshoot this error or convert the offending
characters without knowing them a priori?

Please let me know if any other information would be helpful.

Thank you!
*
*   For searches and help try:
*   http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
*   http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/resources/statalist-faq/
*   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/