recast and replace data

[vicky chann]

I have a variable with the type of byte and would like to recast to string, so that I can replace the numbers with a String.

. But when I try to recast it, it shows invalid.

describe ID

              storage   display    value
variable name   type    format     label      variable label
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ID        byte    %10.0g                

recast str10 ID

ID:  str16 invalid
r(109);

[Nick Cox]

You need to go one step beyond the on-line help to the manual entry to find the key information:

Note that recast is not a command to change, or to map, string variables to numeric variables
or numeric variables to string variables. For that, one of encode, decode, destring, or tostring
is likely to be appropriate.

If you need a string variable here, the command to use will be decode if value labels are defined; otherwise it will be tostring.

[vicky chann]

Thanks Nick! I've successfully replaced the number with strings. However, some errors happened when I was trying to loop it:

it works when:

tostring ID, replace

replace ID = "A1" if ID == "1"
replace ID = "A2" if ID == "2"
replace ID = "A3" if ID == "3"

But it does not work when I try to loop it:

input str2 NumList
1
2
3
end
levelsof NumList, local(NumList) 

foreach x of local NumList {
replace ID = A`x' if ID == `x'
}

[Hemanshu Kumar]

ID is a string, so you need to enclose its values in double quotes:

replace ID = "A`x'" if ID == "`x'"