Command to return name of a value label of a variable?

[Mike Murphy]

I am working with a number of large datasets which have had value labels applied inappropriately. As part of an automated solution to deal with this, I need to generate a list of all variables (in this example a local called "mislabelled") which contains the name of all variables which have the value label "bad_label".

local mislabelled
foreach v of varlist _all {
some_command `v'if ("`r_somecommand'"=="bad_label"){
[INDENT=2]local mislabelled "`mislabelled'" "`v'"[/INDENT]
}
 }

[daniel klein]

See uselabel, especially option var, as in

preserve
uselabel bad_label , var
local mislabelled `r(bad_label)'
restore

display "`mislabelled'"

Also see labutil2 (SSC).

Best
Daniel

[Mike Murphy]

That does exactly what I need, thanks Daniel!

[Nick Cox]

The problem appears to be not

command to return name of a value label of a variable

but

command to return names of variables with specified value label.

Also,

. sysuse auto, clear
(1978 Automobile Data)

. ds, has(vallabel origin)
foreign

. findname, vallabel(origin)
foreign

. search findname, sj

Search of official help files, FAQs, Examples, SJs, and STBs

SJ-15-2 dm0048_3  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Software update for findname
        (help findname if installed)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  N. J. Cox
        Q2/15   SJ 15(2):605--606
        updated to be able to find strL variables

SJ-12-1 dm0048_2  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Software update for findname
        (help findname if installed)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  N. J. Cox
        Q1/12   SJ 12(1):167
        correction for handling embedded double quote characters

SJ-10-4 dm0048_1  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Software update for findname
        (help findname if installed)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  N. J. Cox
        Q4/10   SJ 10(4):691
        update for not option

SJ-10-2 dm0048  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Speaking Stata: Finding variables
        (help findname if installed)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  N. J. Cox
        Q2/10   SJ 10(2):281--296
        produces a list of variable names showing which variables
        have specific properties, such as being of string type, or
        having value labels attached, or having a date format

Here, as documented above, findname is from the Stata Journal and so must be installed before it can be used. In this case, it provides the same functionality with different syntax, which is a little deal. However, I mention it because findname can do everything that ds can do, and much more besides. (and further extensions are planned).

[Mike Murphy]

That is correct, my first impulse was to seek a generalized solution to the problem (returning the property of a variable) but trying to implement this in Stata indeed resulted in a different (and much more specific) question.