Re: st: Formatting a string variable (UK postcodes) to always be seven characters in length

[Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com>]

For readers worldwide, know that (e.g.) my home postcode is DH1 2NJ
with a space.

If some postcodes have already lost internal spaces, putting it back
in each case will be tricky. So, I wonder about taking them all out,

gen postcode2 = subinstr(postcode, " ", "", .)

but I have no idea whether that matches what is outside Stata,

Nick
njcoxstata@gmail.com


On 4 February 2014 15:43,  <catherine.tisch@ed.ac.uk> wrote:

> I'm hoping someone can help me with a formatting issue with regard to UK
> postcodes whereby I want to create a new postcode variable that is always
> seven characters in length from a postcode variable that has between five
> and eight characters (e.g. 7 numbers/letters with a space = 8).  I want to
> ultimately join my cleaned postcode variable created in Stata to a postcode
> shapefile in ArcGIS.  The postcode shapefile variable is always seven
> characters in length, with various combinations of letters, numbers and
> spaces, e.g.
>
> LN  NLL
> LLN NLL
> LNN NLL
> LLNNNLL
> LLNLNLL
> LNL NLL
>
> Where L represents a letter and N a number.  I need to clean my original
> postcode variable as there is little consistency (e.g. LN  NLL (two spaces)
> vs LNNLL (no space) vs LN NLL (one space).
>
> Are there any suggestions on how I can create a new postcode variable in
> Stata that is always seven characters in length bearing in mind that if a
> space/s is required, there always needs to be three characters at the end
> after the split?  I hope this all makes sense?!
>
> I'm using Stata 12.1, any help much appreciated.
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