Re: st: copying contents form existing to new variable

[Patricia Biedermann <pati.stat@gmail.com>]

Thanks Nick for the quick reply.

I imported the data from an excel file; some of them where imported as
string variables and the labels came with importing too.



No, - NumberExamined- doesn't have value label

. describe total NumberExamined

              storage  display     value
variable name   type   format      label      variable label
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
total           long   %8.0g       stooltested   number of stool tested
NumberExamined  double %10.0g


When I did the -list var1 var2 if var1 != var2- command it didn't show
me any results....

On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 3:46 PM, Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com> wrote:
> Your variables are, it may be guessed, numerically identical. See the
> results of -summarize-.
>
> -total- has a value label, but -NumberExamined- seemingly doesn't.
> (You don't show -describe- for that.)
>
> You didn't show any results for -list var1 var2 if var1 != var2- which
> ignores the labels.
>
> Why do you need a value label for what looks numeric? Why was the
> original a string  variable any way? Perhaps there were problems with
> stray characters.
>
> Nick
> njcoxstata@gmail.com
>
>
> On 24 April 2013 14:38, Patricia Biedermann <pati.stat@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello Nick,
>>
>> I used the -clonevar- command. The contents remained the same, but if
>> I do a simple calculation (cross multiplication) with var2 then the
>> results are wrong
>>
>> Here are some results of the approach I used before:
>> NumberExamined should be the copy of total
>>
>> list total NumberExamined
>>
>> total   NumberExamined
>> 1.    51         38
>> 2.  18        10
>> 3.   20         12
>> 4.   19         11
>> 5.   55         41
>> etc
>>
>> describe total NumberExamined
>>
>>                                storage        display     value  variable
>> variablename         type              format      label   label
>>
>> total                       long               %8.0g     stool    stooltest
>>
>> su total NumberExamined
>>
>> Variable                     Obs        Mean    Std. Dev.       Min        Max
>>
>> total                             25       21.56     13.2164
>> 1         45
>> NumberExamined         25       21.56     13.2164          1         45
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 11:20 AM, Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> This could be as simple as your new variable not inheriting the value
>>> labels of the -encode-d variable. (Have a look at -clonevar-.)
>>>
>>> Otherwise, we need more evidence. What you do mean by the contents
>>> changing? Show us the results of
>>>
>>> . describe var1 var2
>>> . su var1 var2
>>> . list var1 var2 if var1 != var2        [example at least]
>>>
>>> Nick
>>> njcoxstata@gmail.com
>>>
>>> On 24 April 2013 10:10, Patricia Biedermann <pati.stat@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> If I generate a new variable from an existing variable it happens that
>>>> the contents get changed.
>>>> gen var2=var1
>>>>
>>>> My approach is following:
>>>> 1) My original variable is string and I - encode - it: var1
>>>> 2) gen var2=var1
>>>>
>>>> At step 2) the contents changes.
>>>> I came along this Thread:
>>>> http://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/2012-05/msg01280.html
>>>> ..and tried to create a double variable first before copying the
>>>> variables. Anyway, the same problem appears again.
>>>>
>>>> What could be the problem? It did this thing (gen var2=var1) many
>>>> times and it always worked so far...
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