How to break down the values of one columns to different columns?

[Hakimeh Nasiri]

Hi
In my survey, I had a ranked order question. I asked the participants to rank 6 variables from 1 to 6.
The dataset is arranged like bellow for this specific question: ("- - - - -" indicates missing)

ranking
4 - 6 - 2 - 3 - 5 - 1
6 - 4 - 5 - 2 - 3 - 1
- - - - -
2 - 4 - 6 - 5 - 3 - 1
6 - 2 - 4 - 5 - 3 - 1
- - - - -
- - - - -
- - - - -
5 - 4 - 6 - 2 - 3 - 1

Currently, Stata considers its storage type as str21 and I need to change it to a numeric type.

How can I break the variable ranking into six different variables: R_var1, R_var2, ..., R_var6 (which means the ranking of var1, ranking of var2, and so on)

Thanks for the recommendations.

[Joseph Coveney]

You could use -split-.

.ÿ
.ÿversionÿ17.0

.ÿ
.ÿclearÿ*

.ÿ
.ÿquietlyÿinputÿstr40ÿranking

.ÿ
.ÿquietlyÿsplitÿranking,ÿgenerate(R_var)ÿparse(-)ÿdestring

.ÿ
.ÿlist,ÿnoobsÿseparator(0)

ÿÿ+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
ÿÿ|ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿrankingÿÿÿR_var1ÿÿÿR_var2ÿÿÿR_var3ÿÿÿR_var4ÿÿÿR_var5ÿÿÿR_var6ÿ|
ÿÿ|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
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ÿÿ|ÿ5ÿ-ÿ4ÿ-ÿ6ÿ-ÿ2ÿ-ÿ3ÿ-ÿ1ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ5ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ4ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ6ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ2ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ3ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ1ÿ|
ÿÿ+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

.ÿ
.ÿexit

endÿofÿdo-file


.

help split

[Joro Kolev]

Try

split ranking, parse("-")

and if it does not work, provide a sample of your data using -dataex-.

[Hakimeh Nasiri]

@Joseph Coveney and @Joro Kolev

Thanks a lot for your quick responses.

It worked successfully :-)