Rename entire list of variables

[Geoff Smythe]

I have a .dta file with 390 variables of widely varying names containing both letters and numbers etc and in no patterns or order. I want to change the variable names to the generic v1, v2, v3, ... in the order in which they appear in the variable list (in the dta file). How to I do this?

[Joseph Coveney]

Try something like the following.

local i 1
foreach var of varlist _all {
    rename `var' v`i'
    local ++i
}

[Geoff Smythe]

Very nice!

[daniel klein]

Loops are essential programming tools, and a good thing to practice. But as of Stata 12 rename does no longer need to be used in loops for tasks like this. Try

rename (*) (v#) , addnumber

Best
Daniel

[Nick Cox]

All that said, I would say that names v1 up would create as many problems as they solve. There is a happy middle ground between anarchy and uniformity. Usually in datasets with that many variables there are blocks of variables with related meaning. It's a real feature of Stata that evocative variable names are possible. I still remain a program whose rules were that all column names began with C.