replacing variable values with strmatch and self-named values which aren't in the dataset yet.

[Claire Thompson]

gen University=.
replace University==Harvard University if strmatch(Degree,"*Harvard*")

Harvard not found
r(111);

gen University=.
replace University==testHarvard University if strmatch(Degree,"*Harvard*")

testHarvard not found
r(111);

I manually want to replace the . of the variable University by specific university names because now I have a variable called Degree containing string values like Harvardgraduated, Harvard school, Harvard college instead of 1 specific university name.

Is there a solution for this? I couldn't find it

[wanhaiyou]

Hi,may be you can do as follow

gen str20 University= ""
replace University = "testHarvard University" if strmatch(Degree,"*Harvard*")

Bests,
wanhaiyou

[Claire Thompson]

Code:

  
 gen University=.
replace University=Harvard University if strmatch(Degree,"*Harvard*")

Harvard not found
r(111);



(In my first post the replace code contained == instead of =) (That was a typo, the error is based on = instead of ==)


Thanks for trying to help me but I still get the same error with your code. Could you tell me another suggestion please?

Harvard University is a selfmade name, it's not the name of a variable, maybe that wasn't clear

I have a variable called Degree containing string values like Harvardgraduated, Harvard school, Harvard college



I want to rename those different kind of names with 1 universal name that describes them. Based on : http://satscores.us/
The website contains a list of all the US universities like Harvard University, Yale University
It's okay if I need to make 150 commands, 1 command for each university
My dataset contains 753,594 observations, so I cannot do this without a good command to replace my different university names for universal names

If i'm able to do so, I can link/merge the listed corresponding SAT scores of those universities with my dataset

[Svend Juul]

University is a string variable, so its values must be shown in quotes, and both following commands are illegal:

gen University=.
replace University=Harvard University if strmatch(Degree,"*Harvard*")

That is what the suggestion by wanhaiyou (who should register with his/her real first and last name) is about.

You need to read about data types

help data types