Question regarding merging simliar strings

[Jonatan Riberth]

Hi,

Lets say I have two datasets. One with various objects written in singular form and one with objects written in plural form and singular form mixed and I want to identify and merge those objects. i.e. merging "Car" with "Cars" .

If the strings are exactly the same this would easily be done by the merge command but in this case I'm stuck. Does there exist some way to tell Stata to merge if the two strings are equal except for one letter?

[Rich Goldstein]

there are user-written programs that may help in this kind of situations; try
Code:

search matchit search reclink
to find and download

[Clyde Schechter]

Also, take a look at the -plural()- function in native Stata. Depending on the complexity of your situation, you may be able to just use that to create a plural version of the singular variable in the singular data set and then -merge- it with the data set that has plurals.

-help plural-

[Jonatan Riberth]

The Matchit command turned out to be very useful, thank you very much!