Re: st: import excel and value labels

[A Loumiotis <antonis.loumiotis@gmail.com>]

Thank you Daniel for your explanation.  I see now that -import excel,
clear- will first clear any existing data and value labels from memory
and then load the excel file.
Best,
Antonis


On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 11:39 AM, daniel klein
<klein.daniel.81@gmail.com> wrote:
> Since you -clear- the memory by specifying the respective option, it
> seems natural to me. It is the same as
>
> clear
> la de foo 1 "foo"
> sysuse auto ,clear
> la li foo
>
> However, defined value labels are also cleared if we do not sepcify
> the -clear- option.
>
> clear
> la de foo 1 "foo"
> sysuse auto
> la li
>
> This makes me wonder about the "status" of value labels. They
> obviously are not regarded as changes to the dataset -- otherwise
> there would be therespective error message and return code  r(4) . One
> migth argue that there should be a similar error message to remind you
> of the fact that you are about to lose your defined value labels - but
> cerainly not if you explicitly specified a -clear- option.
>
> See -label save- for a way to preserve the value labels before
> importing a dataset.
>
> Best
> Daniel
>
> --
> I noticed that whenever I load an excel file in Stata using -import
> excel- the existing values labels are deleted.  Is this the normal
> behavior of -import excel-?
>
> Here is an example:
>
> . label define test 1 "yes" 2 "no"
>
> . label l test
> test:
>            1 yes
>            2 no
>
> . import excel book1.xlsx, clear first
>
> . label l test
> value label test not found
> r(111);
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