geodist

[Elsa Jac]

Dear all,

I am a student working for the geodist commission. I am reporting this problem (below). Could you please enlighten me?

geodist latitude longitude med_X_CENTROID med_Y_CENTROID, generate(dist_center_bdx)
Was expecting a number or a numeric scalar instead of -latitude-
r(198);
storage display value
variable name type format label variable label
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
med_X_CENTROID str6 %9s
med_Y_CENTROID str6 %9s


Please, you would be of great help to me, Best.

[Andrew Musau]

geodist is from SSC, authored by Robert Picard.

Was expecting a number or a numeric scalar instead of -latitude-
r(198);

You need the variables "latitude", "longitude", "med_X_CENTROID" and "med_Y_CENTROID" to be numeric variables. See

help destring

[Elsa Jac]

Thank you for message,

I've changed the variables to numeric format format with destring, and this is what the message show: may be I should convert to decimal-degree bu what is the code to use?

. destring med_X_CENTROID, replace
med_X_CENTROID has all characters numeric; replaced as long

. destring med_Y_CENTROID, replace
med_Y_CENTROID has all characters numeric; replaced as long

. geodist X_CENTROID Y_CENTROID med_X_CENTROID med_Y_CENTROID , generate(dist_center_bdx)
latitude 1 must be between -90 and 90
r(198);

Please, Best regard,

[Andrew Musau]

The latitude coordinate refers to how far you are from the Equator. So the North Pole has the latitude coordinate of 90°N and the South Pole has 90°S. Every other place is in-between. You should check why you have values outside (-90 90).

[Elsa Jac]

Thank you for your answer, it's because I was in Lambert93

[Andrew Musau]

I am not aware of any Stata command that will do this conversion, but you can use the following website:

https://geofree.fr/gf/coordinateConv.asp