I would like to write and use a program to effect the change. That is, a variable name which can be set and used dynamically. Following are examples of how to create new variables in stata using the gen short for generate and egen commands to create a new variable for example, newvar and set its value to 0, use. However, i need only those variables that have certain characters. Spssx discussion add a suffix to all variable names. If there are additional common variables, sas saves only the last values encountered. A stata variable name can contain up to 32 characters in any version of stata. Its just an old command that does one of many things that the much more general rename can do, so its flagged as outofdate, but if you know the syntax, it will work so long as what you ask is legal.
Options for changing the case of groups of variable names. Finally, if you are using nicco, aristotle or the rs6000 cluster, there is a command specifically for converting sas data into stata called sas2stata. Do you prefix variable names with an abbreviation of the. Sometimes it is convenient to be able to have variable variable names.
Simply use the colon operator along with the common prefix in a drop or keep statement. Baums an introduction to stata programming, second edition, is a great reference for anyone that wants to learn stata programming. Is it possible to impute longitudinal data in the long format. Each is the name of a county and the values represent the population at different age groups.
I would like to program a loop in stata to change the name a long list of variables ending with. If you want to use variables that have a common prefix but have a variety of suffixes, you can use the colon operator. Create a new variable based on existing data in stata. Introduction asdoc sends stata output to word rtf format. Also seed rename group for renaming groups of variables. Using variables, expressions, wildcards, and string. The variable names in stata cant start with a number, so, if the first row of observations contains only numbers e.
The common function to use is newvariable oldvariable. What command can i use to select variables containing specific pattern in stata. In the above example, hello, can be used as the name of a. In the same light is there a way to add a prefix or suffix to all entries of one variable. I am going to add prefix ahead of each variable,eg listed below the sample dataset. We have a list of variables defined by a prefix followed by an index number. Data data utilities rename groups of variables description rename changes the name of existing variable old varname to new varname. If you have sas data you want to convert to stata, this may be a useful way to get your sas data into stata. Hungarian notation is an identifier naming convention in computer programming, in which the name of a variable or function indicates its intention or kind, and in some dialects its type. Imputing in stata add prefixes to all imputed variables for example which can make reshaping the data difficult.
Not all characters in the keyboard, however, are allowed in naming variables. I have many variables that need to be reshaped from wide form to long form. Add a suffix or prefix to a group of variable names the sample code on the full code tab illustrates how to add a suffix or prefix to a group of variables in a data set. In this case, 1 the stub should be inc, which is the variable to be converted from wide to long, 2 i is the id variable, which is the unique identifier of observations in wide form, and 3 j is the year variable that i am going to create it tells stata that suffix of inc i. The program can be installed by typing the following from the stata. A variable name may contain only the digits 0 to 9 and upper or lower case english alphabets a to z. However, systems hungarian is actually a misunderstanding of the original, real hungarian. The basic specification is an old variable name, an equals sign, and the new variable name. Then, wherever the macro name is used elsewhere in the dofile or program with. You can also use upper and lower case letters for different objects remember stata is case. Another nice little improvement would be to add a label to our new variable. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts.
Spssx discussion adding a prefix to variable names. Renaming a group of variables with the same prefix posted 02022015 15184 views in reply to walternate explore using proc datasets modify with rename sas code can be generated then %include, based on the output of a proc contents with out or otherwise manually coded ifwhere the sas variable names are known and expected to be. Note that obviously you cannot use variable lists here. We add the option clear to clear any data in memory first before importing. Spss statistics is a software package used for statistical analysis. Variables are always added horizontally in a data frame. The desired suffix should be enclosed in quotes as well. What command can i use to select variables containing. On april 23, 2014, statalist moved from an email list to a forum, based at.
Adding a prefix to variable names dear list, data managers in my office have cut corners and put similar data from. For compatibility reasons older versions of the software the colon is not required for some prefix commands, and various shortcuts exist. Renaming a group of variables with the same prefix sas. A numeral such as 1 would be illegal as the first character in a variable name. An introduction to stata programming, second edition. Adding prefix to many variable names to prep for reshape. Variable names can be specified right behind variables. For those learning, baum assumes familiarity with stata and gradually introduces more advanced programming tools. In stata, under the one data principal, any information in the data 11 must be in a variable. Following spss syntax conventions, variable names should be separated by spaces.
Looking at the documentation it looks like i have to use. This post demonstrates how to create new variables, recode existing variables and label variables and values of variables. But if you want to do the same for all variables with a common suffix, things get more complicated, because the. How to create, rename, recode and merge variables in r. If the name of the variable is ambiguous, add braces to the name. We have a list of variables, and the name for each variable consists of the original name plus a common suffix. To create a new variable or to transform an old variable into a new one, usually, is a simple task in r. Whatever they type must be a legal stata variable name. Systems hungarian is completely useless and should be avoided. When the names are in common, the variables are numbered sequentially, but they are not stored. How to automate common tasks timberlake consultants. Inputting your data into stata stata learning modules.
Automatically renaming common variables before merging christopher j. There is nothing out of order in using renpfix in stata 12. We need to just add asdoc as a prefix to stata commands. This syntax will add a suffix to one, many or all variables in your data. Understand that whenever stata wants a varlist it can be a list of variables, such as. Rename variables changes the names of variables in the active dataset while preserving their original order, values, variable labels, value labels, missing values, and print and write formats basic specification. Natasha sarkisian labeling and naming variables, values, datasets naming variables variable names in stata can have up to 32 characters, but it is a good idea to keep them much shorter as it is easier to type, plus many commands print only 12. Yes all i was missing is the comma, and after adding that using the renvars command from the stata journal worked just fine for what i needed. In apps hungarian, you dont encode the type in the variable name, you encode the kind of the variable. We intend to use what is typed as a prefix or suffix to a variable name, so that string must itself not contain anything that would be illegal in a variable name. How to add a common prefix to all variables in stata 12. Also the command renpfix has been superseded in stata 12. For example, for the id variable is it possible to rename 1,2,3,4,5 to sk1, sk2, sk3 etc etc. The name hidden variables may be slightly more dramatic than need be.
When using names in your code try to be explicit, when generating variables, label them. If fromvar has no variable label, the name of fromvar becomes the variable label of tovar. Because the hashtag code assumes the variables in the interaction term are categorical, it is necessary to define numerical variables as numerical with the c. Adding prefix to many variable names to prep for reshape statalist. A few spss loops for renaming variables dynamically spss. Here we use the generate command to create a new variable representing population younger than 18 years. A variable variable takes the value of a variable and treats that as the name of a variable.
This module should be installed from within stata by typing ssc install fpref. Adding prefix to many variable names to prep for reshape 16 sep 2015, 08. We are going to change the prefix and still use the same index. Thanks you guys, i think that trick is very helpful. A using variables, expressions, wildcards, and string interpolation. Automatically renaming common variables before merging. A few spss loops for renaming variables dynamically spss code fragments. Sofware carpentry helping scientists make better software since.
Several variables can be renamed with a single command, as in. The to and all keywords may be used and the entire specification should be enclosed in quotes. There is no need to encode the type of the variable in its name. Adds prefix jan to all variables ending in pop, for example, age1pop. Stata assumes that variable names are the first row of data in text files. This paper shows how to automatically rename common variables. Prefixes can be a huge help in avoiding confusion and ambiguities. Stata module to add prefix or suffix to filenames, statistical software components s457178, boston college department of economics. It can be used to rename all, or a subset, of the variables. I am asked to provide syntax to merge several datasets from a panel survey same cases interviewed on several occasions. In your code, renvars sj is adding the prefix longprefix to the variable names in the bg2 dataset. The original hungarian notation uses intention or kind in its naming convention and is sometimes called apps hungarian as it became popular in the microsoft apps division in the development of word, excel and.