Re: st: RE: Generating a value depending on filename

[Jack Newsham <j.newsham@gmail.com>]

Dear Joel,

I think this comes close, but I see two problems:

1) the numerical "state" variable I'm attempting to create is designed
to match the FIPS state codes in my main project dataset from the
Census, and the FIPS system skips five numbers (3, 7, 14, 43, and 52)
for non-state US territories. Starting with AR, I'd have a lot of
numbers to replace.

2) The alphabetical order of state initials does not match the
alphabetical order of states themselves (starting with AriZona and
ARkansas), which is what FIPS is based on.

Best,
Jack Newsham

On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 4:48 PM, Joe Canner <jcanner1@jhmi.edu> wrote:
> Jack,
>
> How about:
>
> foreach initials in AK AL AR AZ CA {
>   import excel `initials'_labor_vars.xls, sheet("BLS Data Series") firstrow
>   gen stateinit = "`initials'"
>   encode stateinit, gen(statecode)
> }
>
> The variable -stateinit- will be a string variable with the state's initials and the variable -statecode- will be a number from 1 to 51 corresponding to the alphabetical order of the initials.  Let us know if that is not what you want.
>
> Regards,
> Joe Canner
> Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu [mailto:owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] On Behalf Of Jack Newsham
> Sent: Tuesday, December 03, 2013 4:24 PM
> To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
> Subject: st: Generating a value depending on filename
>
> Hi all,
>
> I'm working with state-by-state employment data on 51 Excel
> spreadsheets that I plan to eventually append together and merge into
> my main project file. Each spreadsheet is organized in columns
> containing the year, month, and several measures of employment, with
> only the name of the spreadsheet identifying the state whose data it
> contains. I am attempting to create two variables -- "time" and
> "state" -- to merge these data into my main file.
>
> I'm somewhat of a Stata naif, however, and I'm running into a problem
> when I try to generate "state" and give it a different value in every
> spreadsheet. My use of  "if filename ==" and "if using" seem to be the
> source of the problem, but I can't imagine how to generate a state
> variable with a different value in each file. I've excerpted from my
> do file, in relevant part. Can you advise? Is there a way to do this
> in a loop? My thanks for any pointers.
>
> foreach initials in AK AL AR AZ CA {
> * The clear command is at the end of this loop.
> import excel `initials'_labor_vars.xls, sheet("BLS Data Series") firstrow
> * Create time variable by which to merge:
> encode period,gen(monthnum)
> gen time = (year * 100) + monthnum
> * Create state variable by which to merge:
> gen state = 01 if filename == "AL_labor_vars.xls" | 02 if filename ==
> "AK_labor_vars.xls" |  ///
> 04 if filename == "AZ_labor_vars.xls" | 05 if filename ==
> "AR_labor_vars.xls" | ///
> 06 if filename == "CA_labor_vars.xls"
> }
>
> Best,
> Jack Newsham
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