Proper import column names from excel table

[Ekaterina Shpanenberg]

Dear all,

I try to import the table from Excel using the code below:

set maxvar 5700, permanently
import excel using excess.xlsx , firstrow

The first row in Excel contains column names consisting of the numbers like 100003 and so on.
However, Stata imports the table, taking these numbers labels and gives variable names like "A", "B", and so on.

When I try to rename them so that labels become names of variables, Stata cannot do that:

foreach v of varlist A B C {
local x : variable label `v'
*local q`v'  =strtoname("`x'",0) - 1st attempt
local q`v'  =int(`x') - 2nd attempt
ren `v' `q`v''
label variable `q`v'' "`v'"
}

Could you please help me to either import the table so that integer of the first row were imported as variable names or to change labels to names.
Thanks a lot.

[Jorrit Gosens]

You will need some proper string value for the name, for example by adding 'v' to each number before using it as the name

foreach v of varlist A-C { 
local x : variable label `v' 
ren `v' v`x'
}

Just doign this will preserve original number format from excel as the variable label