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st: RE: Using wildcards in string variables to drop observations
From
Joe Canner <[email protected]>
To
"[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Subject
st: RE: Using wildcards in string variables to drop observations
Date
Mon, 30 Sep 2013 14:32:50 +0000
Rainer,
Wildcards in Stata are typically only used in variable names. The nearest equivalent for what you want to do is regular expressions (functions regexm, regexr, regexs), which I wouldn't recommend for a new user. Fortunately, there is another alternative:
. drop if strpos(variable,"%")
Regards,
Joe Canner
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Rainer Maurer
Sent: Monday, September 30, 2013 7:12 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: st: Using wildcards in string variables to drop observations
Dear Statalisters,
I'm a stata-newy and have the following problem: I want to drop all observations where in a string variable the string "%" appears. I thought the straightforward command would be ' drop if variable = = "*%" '. However, using this command, nothing is eliminated. If I specify the string completly (like ' drop if variable = = "DE12%" '
the observation is eliminated just as I want it. Where is my mistake?
Do wildcards like * not work in these kinds of commands?
Thanks a lot for any piece of help!
Rainer
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