Referring to a particular element within a numeric variable

[Abdul Majid]

Hi all,

I have an identifier variable in my dataset which is coded as "XYZ" where X,Y, and Z can take on the numbers 1 to 5. I would like to look at the observations where Y=2 for the identifier variable. Is there any way to refer to the second or any other element of a variable?

Thank you.

[William Lisowski]

Perhaps these two examples will start you in a useful direction.

. generate ident_s = strofreal(ident,"%3.0f")

. generate wanted = substr(ident_s,2,1) == "2"

. generate x = floor(ident/100)

. generate y = floor(ident/10)-10*x

. generate z = ident - 10*y - 100*x

. generate wanted2 = y==2

. list, clean

       ident   ident_s   wanted   x   y   z   wanted2  
  1.     123       123        1   1   2   3         1  
  2.     234       234        0   2   3   4         0  
  3.     345       345        0   3   4   5         0  
  4.     524       524        1   5   2   4         1

[Abdul Majid]

Perhaps these two examples will start you in a useful direction.

. generate ident_s = strofreal(ident,"%3.0f")

. generate wanted = substr(ident_s,2,1) == "2"

. generate x = floor(ident/100)

. generate y = floor(ident/10)-10*x

. generate z = ident - 10*y - 100*x

. generate wanted2 = y==2

. list, clean

ident ident_s wanted x y z wanted2
1. 123 123 1 1 2 3 1
2. 234 234 0 2 3 4 0
3. 345 345 0 3 4 5 0
4. 524 524 1 5 2 4 1

Thank you! Converting the variable into a string and extracting the sub-string looks like a good way to approach this.