Label A Range

[Jess VP]

I would like to label define a range of values in STATA. My data looks like this:

Occupation Code	Occupation Name
201	Social Work
202-206	Community/Social Services
316	Physical Therapy
420-425	Building & Grounds

For single values like 201 and 316, I would simply write: label define occupation 201 "Social work" 316 "Physical Therapy"; But, how do I label define a range?

Thanks.

[Clyde Schechter]

You can do it in a short loop after you define the label for all the single values

forvalues i = 202/206 {
     label define occupation `i' "Community/Social Services", add
}

See -help forvalues-. This is a real "bread and butter" command in Stata that you really need to learn in order to function in Stata. See the help files and manual sections for -forvalues- and its companion -foreach-.

[William Lisowski]

I agree with Clyde's technique, but depending on where you are going with this, it might not be what you want. Consider the following example.

. input x

             x
  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. end

. label define xlab 1 "Dog" 2 "Cat" 3 "Cat" 4 "Cat" 5 "Dog"

. label values x xlab

. tab x

          x |      Freq.     Percent        Cum.
------------+-----------------------------------
        Dog |          1       20.00       20.00
        Cat |          1       20.00       40.00
        Cat |          1       20.00       60.00
        Cat |          1       20.00       80.00
        Dog |          1       20.00      100.00
------------+-----------------------------------
      Total |          5      100.00

If that isn't what you expect, use the recode command to create a new variable with two values, and in the process assign labels to those values.

. recode x (1 5=1 "Dog") (2/5=2 "Cat"), generate(xx)
(3 differences between x and xx)

. tab xx

RECODE of x |      Freq.     Percent        Cum.
------------+-----------------------------------
        Dog |          2       40.00       40.00
        Cat |          3       60.00      100.00
------------+-----------------------------------
      Total |          5      100.00

[Jess VP]

Clyde and William, thanks a lot.

William, thank you. I am glad you suggested recoding, and that is what I have exactly done. It works. Thanks!