Labels (Abc) from variable names (Abc_defghi)

[Ian Lutz]

Hi all,

I've seen a few posts asking questions about labelling variables by their respective names, but I haven't come across a way to address my problem:
I'm working with a few datasets I'm trying to merge using a year variable. The variables are very similar in that they share country names. I'd like to label all of the variables that begin with country names by their country names. I've been looking at using split, but can't figure it out.

other potentially pertinent info:

variables names are in the following format: Abc_Defghi ; (ideally this variable would be labelled as Abc)

[Joseph Coveney]

Try something along the lines of

foreach var of varlist _all {
    local place = strpos("`var'", "_")
    if !`place' continue
    label variable `var' `=substr("`var'", 1, `place'-1)'
}

[Ian Lutz]

That seems to have done the trick.

Thanks Joseph!