Re: st: macros of multiple complex strings

[David Lockhart <david.lockhart@gmail.com>]

Thanks, Nick.

That both makes sense and works.

On Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 3:39 PM, Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com> wrote:
> My guess:
>
> Your second code block first tries to interpret
>
> replace lym = 1 if `textfield' == `proc'
>
> as
>
> replace lym = 1 if prncptx = LAPT STG/RESTG OVARIAN TUBAL/PRIM MAL 2ND LOOK
>
> and Stata tries to make sense of this by looking for a variable (or
> scalar) named
>
> LAPT
>
> and it fails. Hence the error. Stata didn't even look at the rest of
> your text string. Stata bailed out at the first error.
>
> The code should be
>
> replace lym = 1 if `textfield' == "`proc'"
>
> so that `proc' appears inside " " and is interpreted as you want as a
> literal string.
>
> You may well be thinking: But I supplied " " as delimiters. And so you
> did, but Stata's habit is to strip delimiters, and you must put them
> back.
> Nick
> njcoxstata@gmail.com
>
>
> On 2 July 2013 23:28, David Lockhart <david.lockhart@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I have a dataset with information on surgeries recorded by CPT codes.  Each
>> patient has up to 21 CPT codes in variables called cpt othercpt1 ...
>> othercpt10 concpt1 ... concpt10.
>>
>> I also have several lists of CPT codes which include procedures of
>> interest. For example, 6 codes which involve lymph node dissection (LND). I
>> am trying to create a variable which has the value 1 if the surgery
>> involved LND and 0 if it did not.
>>
>> But some codes are ambiguous, for example the code 58960 includes removal
>> of tumor with or without LND. Each CPT code field has an accompanying text
>> field which holds a brief text description describing the procedure, and
>> sometimes this can disambiguate these codes. I have made a list of the
>> values this text field takes on for the ambiguous codes and have selected
>> those which I wish to count as indicating that LND was performed. But I'm
>> having trouble setting up the code to do this.
>>
>> Here's what I'm trying that isn't working. The first loop works but the
>> second does not.
>>
>> gen lym = 0
>> foreach cptfield of varlist cpt othercpt* concpt*{
>>     foreach cptcode of numlist 38562 38564 38570 38571 38572 38589 38770
>> 38780 58200 58210 ///
>>     58548 58943 58951 58954 59548 {
>>         qui replace lym = 1 if `cptfield' == `cptcode'
>>     }
>> }
>>
>> foreach textfield of varlist prncptx otherproc* concurr* {
>>     foreach proc in "LAPT STG/RESTG OVARIAN TUBAL/PRIM MAL 2ND LOOK" ///
>>     "RESECT RECUR GYN MAL W/LYM" "BSO W/OMNTC TAH DEBULKING W/LMPHADEC" ///
>>     "LAPS W/RAD HYST W/BILAT LMPHADEC RMVL T" "RAD ABDL HYST W/BI PEL
>> LMPHADEC" ///
>>     "RESECTION RECRT MAL W/OMENTECTOMY PEL LMPHADEC" ///
>>     "LAPAROTOMY, FOR STAGING OR RESTAGING OF OVARIAN,"{
>>         replace lym = 1 if `textfield' == `proc'
>>     }
>> }
>>
>> When I run this, I get an error that "LAPT not found".  So, I can tell it
>> is trying to split up that string into "words", but I don't understand why
>> or how to get it to treat the strings as separate units.
>> *
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