Splitting Variable after fourth character

[Matthias Brueggemann]

Hi all,

I have the following table where I want to split the variable "id". This variable always consists of four numbers followed by the company name. Therefore, I want to split this variable into two variables "year" and "company". "Year" should include the first four numbers of the "id" variable and "company" the characters following the first four numbers. Hence, I want to split the entries in the column "id" after the fourth character. Yet, the column "id" shall not be eliminated but remain within the table.

Example: "20073COM CORP" should be split up into "2007" and "3COM CORP"..

* Example generated by -dataex-. To install: ssc install dataex
clear
input long id float(RemainingTenure FEMALE) byte _merge
 1 2.4285715         0 3
 2         2        .3 3
 3         2         0 3
 4         2 .11111111 3
 5         2        .2 3
 6         2        .1 3
 7         3         0 3
 8         2         0 3
 9         2         0 3
10         2 .15384616 3
end
label values id id
label def id 1 "20073COM CORP.", modify
label def id 2 "20073M CO", modify
label def id 3 "20074KIDS ENTERTAINMENT, INC.", modify
label def id 4 "200799 (CENTS) ONLY STORES", modify
label def id 5 "2007A. M. CASTLE & CO.", modify
label def id 6 "2007A. O. SMITH CORP.", modify
label def id 7 "2007AAR CORP.", modify
label def id 8 "2007AARON RENTS, INC.", modify
label def id 9 "2007ABAXIS, INC.", modify
label def id 10 "2007ABBOTT LABORATORIES", modify
label values _merge _merge
label def _merge 3 "matched (3)", modify

Thanks for your support.

Best

Matthias

[Wouter Wakker]

Thanks for the data example. I believe this does what you want:

decode id, gen(id_str)
gen year = real(substr(id_str, 1, 4))
gen company = substr(id_str, 5, .)

[Matthias Brueggemann]

Thank you for your help Wouter, this is exactly the command I needed.