Identifying specific variable value - trailing blank?

[Andreas Jensen]

Hello

I have a problem with what seems to be a blank in a string.
The str10 variable is called X and a commonly occurring value is "DVAXX". This value is e.g. observed for observation number 1.
However, another value of X is also observed. This value is e.g. observed for observation number 2.
My problem is that I am not able to identify this other value. The codebook command confirms that the type is str6.
I suspected the value to be "DVAXX " (that is with a trailing blank), but when I type:

display substr(X[2],6,1)==" "

the result is 0 i.e. false, contrary to what I achieve when typing:

display substr("DVAXX ",6,1)==" "

Here the result is 1 i.e. true.
When I type:

display substr(X[2],6,1)

no symbol is shown in the result window. In other words I am not able to visually discern it from the result I get when typing:

display substr("DVAXX ",6,1)

Thus my question is: what is the value of X[2] and how do I find out?

Best regards
Andreas Jensen

[Nick Cox]

Stata has just one double quote character, always displayed as upright, so the display above of left-leaning and right-leaning characters is distracting.

I can't make sense of even a corrected version of your second statement, which isn't even legal:

. display substr("DVAXX ")==" "
invalid syntax
r(198);

charlist from SSC may help in identifying the puzzling characters. It may be char(160).

[Joseph Coveney]

Maybe

assert x[2] == "DVAXX "

or

display strpos(x[2], " ")

[Andreas Jensen]

Stata has just one double quote character, always displayed as upright, so the display above of left-leaning and right-leaning characters is distracting.

I can't make sense of even a corrected version of your second statement, which isn't even legal:

. display substr("DVAXX ")==" "
invalid syntax
r(198);

charlist from SSC may help in identifying the puzzling characters. It may be char(160).

I agree that the quoting was distracting. It is now edited. And the second statement is edited to make sense as well.

Maybe

assert x[2] == "DVAXX "

or

display strpos(x[2], " ")

1) It says 'assertion is false'
2) I tried that and '0' is returned - meaning that X[2] does not contain the string " ".

[Joseph Coveney]

It might be ANSI decimal code point 160, as Nick mentioned. If so, then

display strpos(x[2], char(160))

would show it. Or try charlist as Nick suggested.

[Andreas Jensen]

It might be ANSI decimal code point 160, as Nick mentioned. If so, then

display strpos(x[2], char(160))

would show it. Or try charlist as Nick suggested.

It says zero again. It might be another char(), though? I try to run a loop and see.

Edit: It worked. Apparently the character was char(13)