Replace if, with str3 variables

[Frederik Witzemann]

Hey guys,

what I want to do is pretty striaghtforward. I would like to replace 3-digit country codes by 2-digit country codes. My 3-digit country codes are strings (str3) with format (%9s). Due to some research I came up with the following code.

replace reporteriso = string("AE","%9s") if reporteriso == string("ARE", "%9s")

However there is still type mismatch due to error 109.


Many thanks in advance!

[Maarten Buis]

Assuming that these are standard three letter country codes, then the easiest solution for you would be to look at kountry on SSC. Type in Stata ssc desc kountry. That program will do the conversion of all codes in one command, saving you a lot of typing (and, if you are like me, a lot of typos).

If that does not work for you, then you can do the recoding manually:

 replace reporteriso = "AE" if reporteriso == "ARE"

[Frederik Witzemann]

Thanks for your answer. That leads me to the next problem. How do I merge it with the data in my memory? I'm particularly interested in the k_iso2c.ado file.
Many thanks!

[Maarten Buis]

I don't understand that question. Are you asking how to use kountry? You don't use k_iso2c.ado directly, you let kountry take care of that. In general you install it (ssc install kountry), you open the help file (help kountry), and then do what the help file tells you. In your case it is probably kountry reporteriso , from(iso3c) to(iso2c). But since I don't have access to your data, I am guessing.