Replacing using loops

[Rhoda Mensah]

Hi All,

Please can someone assist with the following; I'm very new to stata;

Var1
Bongo
Kassena
Bolgatanga
Tolon
Salvelgu
Yendi
Karaga

This variable(Var1) is a string variables.In one step how can i replace Bongo=1, Kassena=2 Bolgatanga=3 Tolon =4 etc

Thanks for your assistance

Daniel

[Clyde Schechter]

If these were in alphabetical order, it could be done with a single command. But in the circumstance, I think the shortest thing you can do is:

label define var1_label 1 "Bongo" 2 "Kassena" 3 "Bolgatanga" 4 "Tolton" 5 "Salvelgu" 6 "Yendi" 7 "Karaga"
encode Var1, gen(numeric_Var1) label(var1_label)

[Nick Cox]

No loop needed

help encode

label def mylabel 1 Bongo 2 Kassena 3 Bolgatanga 4 Tolon 66 "Cape Coast" 
encode var1, gen(numvar) label(mylabel)

[Carole J. Wilson]

If Var1 is sorted in your data in the order you would like the numeric variable, and you want a sequential numeric variable from 1 to _N, then you can use Nick Cox's -labmask- [SJ8-2]

net describe gr0034, from(http://www.stata-journal.com/software/sj8-2)]

with the following

gen X=_n
labmask X, values(Var1)

desc X
list Var1 X
list Var1 X, nolab

[Rhoda Mensah]

Many thanks Nick Cox and Carole Wilson