Re: st: reshaping database with dates ordered in wide format to long format

[Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com>]

I have strategical rather than tactical advice as I failed to absorb
everything here. -reshape long- first, however crudely, then work on
the dataset in that form.

It sounds as if you are seeking a command that does everything in one
go, but that sounds unlikely.

If you don't get better answers:

1. An example of the data usually helps.

2. Show us the commands you have tried so far.

Nick

On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 10:33 AM, hind lazrak <hindstata@gmail.com> wrote:

> I have a cohort of families that are followed over time.
> They are asked at one time point (3months after the birth of their
> child) to list the addresses and dates of move in and move out where
> they have lived since they consented to participate in the study.
>
> For some families it is simple: they have never moved- but for others,
> there is quite some movement.
> The way the questionnaire was entered is shaped in wide format
> For example, consider this simplified version of the data I have
> For each id we have the following variables
> reside3mq1 reside3mq2 reside3mq2a reside3mq2b
> reside3mq3 reside3mq3a reside3mq3b
> reside3mq4 reside3mq4a reside3mq4b
>
> Data dictionary -
> reside3mq1 is binary and indicates if the family has moved since consent
>
> reside3mq`i' is the date of move-in  in address`i'
> reside3mq`i'a is the postal code at address `i'  /*postal code is alphanumeric*/
> reside3m`i'b is the date of move-out at address`i'
>
> So, if `i' can go from 2 to 5 (not all family move 3 times so it varies by id)
> How can I generate a data set where each id has `i' rows with move-in
> and move-out dates and corresponding postal code?
>
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