Renaming groups of variables

[Talia Sherrard]

Hello,

I was wondering if it is possible to rename groups of variables using the foreach command or similar.

I have been provided questionnaire data where the variable names include the question stem like this:

A1howoftendoyoufeelsad
A2howoftendoyoufeelanx
A3howoftendoyoufeelstres

.......

A50howoftendoyoufeelguilt

I would quite like to rename my variables along the lines of...
mentalhealth_1
mentalhealth_2
mentalhealth_3
........
mentalhealth_50

Is this possible and how would I go about doing this?

Many thanks for any advice.

[Clyde Schechter]

If the original variables are in the order you show in that data set and there are no other variables intervening, you can do it with:

rename (A1howoftendoyoufeelsad-A50howoftendoyoufeelguilt) mentalhealth_#, addnumber

Another approach which works if all of the variables begin with A, followed by a number, followed by howoftendoyoufeeland then some ending:

rename (A#howoftendoyoufeel*) mentalhealth_#

[Talia Sherrard]

Thank you, this solved the problem perfectly!