weird values of destringed variable

[Julian Schaper]

Dear all,

I have a string variable with values such as 64.548394768763261

I have used

encode var, generate(newvar)

to destring the variable.

When I now take the mean of it I am getting values that are much higher than the actual mean should be, such as 1648.63657173...

That seems really odd to me and I suppose that I don't read the initial values of the variable as it is. Is there a way to solve this such that I get actual decimals. I hope my issue is comprehensible.

Best,
Julian

[daniel klein]

As the help for encode warns:

Do not use encode if varname contains numbers that merely happen to be stored as strings; instead, use generate newvar = real(varname) or destring; see real() or [D] destring.

[Julian Schaper]

Thank you, this solves it! :D