Findname problem for Likert variables

[Chris Martin]

I've been trying to use findname to get a list of Likert variables where the values range from 1 to 7. However, it is not finding a set of variables that have such value ranges. Here's an example of the code where it fails to find inc1w1. Is there a reason for this?

. . findname, all((@ >= 0 & @ <= 7))
racecnt       taid7         taid18        tmmxhoneshex  tmmiagreehex  tmmxzhones~x  tmmiinc       tmjust        tmsdpj
race_unknown  taid8         taid19        tmsdhoneshex  tmmxagreehex  tmsdzhones~x  tmmxinc       tmmijust      tminfj
racea         taid9         taid20        tmemotihex    tmsdagreehex  tmmxzemoti~x  tmsdinc       tmmxjust      tmmiinfj
genderb       taid10        taid21        tmmiemotihex  tmconschex    tmsdzemoti~x  tmincsh       tmsdjust      tmmxinfj
wavetotal     taid11        taid22        tmmxemotihex  tmmiconschex  tmsdzextra~x  tmmiincsh     tmdj          tmsdinfj
taid1         taid12        taid23        tmsdemotihex  tmmxconschex  tmmxzagree~x  tmmxincsh     tmmidj        tmintj
taid2         taid13        taid24        tmextrahex    tmsdconschex  tmsdzagree~x  tmsdincsh     tmmxdj        tmmiintj
taid3         taid14        taid25        tmmiextrahex  tmopennhex    tmsdzconsc~x  tmps          tmsddj        tmmxintj
taid4         taid15        taid26        tmmxextrahex  tmmiopennhex  tmmxzopenn~x  tmmips        tmpj          tmsdintj
taid5         taid16        tmhoneshex    tmsdextrahex  tmmxopennhex  tmsdzopenn~x  tmmxps        tmmipj
taid6         taid17        tmmihoneshex  tmagreehex    tmsdopennhex  tminc         tmsdps        tmmxpj

. 
. 
end of do-file

.  tab inc1w1, nolab

In the past |
seven days, |
my team has |
   given me |
the feeling |
     that I |
    belong. |      Freq.     Percent        Cum.
------------+-----------------------------------
          1 |          3        1.32        1.32
          3 |          5        2.19        3.51
          4 |          1        0.44        3.95
          5 |         10        4.39        8.33
          6 |         80       35.09       43.42
          7 |        129       56.58      100.00
------------+-----------------------------------
      Total |        228      100.00

[Ken Chui]

My guess is that inc1w1 may have a missing value. Because missing value is >7, the variable did not get selected.

[Nick Cox]

That's my guess too. (findname is from the Stata Journal.)

You can add | missing(@) to the condition.

[Chris Martin]

OK that worked. I didn't know that missing values are >7. On a related note is there a way to find variables that have names like inc1w1 inc2w1 inc1w2 etc, but not exclude variables where the fourth or sixth character is a character. So I'd need to exclude incxwp for instance. In a regular expression this would be something like inc[0-9]w[0-9[

[Leonardo Guizzetti]

This will allow you scan for patterns using regular expressions.

qui ds
local vars `r(varlist)'

local match_vars
forval i = 1/`: word count `vars'' {
    local v : word `i' of `vars'
    if ustrregexm("`v'", "inc[0-9]w[0-9]", .) {
      local match_vars `match_vars' `v'
  }
}

[daniel klein]

Variable names can only contain a limited set of characters where the relevant distinction is between numeric/digits and non-numeric characters. rename matches digits in variable names:

rename (inc#w#) (_=) , dryrun r
return list