How to replace comma(,) with punctuation(.) for the decimal separator

[Ed Suh]

Hi Stata users,

I am using European data, and it has punctuation for thousand separator, and comma for decimal separator. (Reverse to the U.S.)

How can I destring it correctly?
For example

45,5 is indeed 45.5. But I cannot make it like this.
Also 256.233 is indeed 256,233 in the U.S. format

Does anyone have an idea for this?

Best regards,
Ed

[Nick Cox]

The help for destring tells you about the dpcomma option which is intended for exactly this purpose.

[William Lisowski]

Generalizing on Nick's answer, when a command does not work as expected, the first step is to read Stata's help for the command, as recommended by Section 3 of the Statalist FAQ linked to from the top of every Statalist page.

[Ed Suh]

Thank you Nick and William, I would look into this.

[Ed Suh]

Hi Nick,
I could do dpcomma for comma to punctuation. But I cannot still do the other way around. Punctuation to comma. Do you have any idea about this? I appreciate your help!

[William Lisowski]

How a variable is displayed is a consequence of the display format to the variable. If you haven't used

format

to assign a display format to your numeric variable, it will have the default display format.

help format

explains what you need to know.