Stata does not non English string names

[Paris Rira]

Dear Statalists,

I am going to rename the below string variable such as:

 
rename Canadá CA


  
  			
rename Colômbia CO

* Example generated by -dataex-. For more info, type help dataex
clear
input str80 nationalities
"Z�mbia"                         
"Brasil"                                                                                
"Canad�"                              
"Portugal"                                                 
"Col�mbia"                            
" �ndia"

As you can see, the stata does not recognize the non-English alphabet. So is there any way to solve this problem?

I am grateful for your valuable ideas.

Cheers,
Paris

[William Lisowski]

Here is example code creating and renaming variables that seems to demonstrate what you seem to describe.

. set obs 1
Number of observations (_N) was 0, now 1.

. generate Canadá = 1

. generate Colômbia = 2

. list, clean noobs

    Canadá   Colômbia  
         1          2  

. rename Canadá CA

. rename Colômbia CO

. list, clean noobs

    CA   CO  
     1    2  

.

With that said, your data extract does not show variable names - it shows a string variable containing country names.

. * Example generated by -dataex-. For more info, type help dataex
. clear

. input str20 country

                  country
  1. "Canadá"  
  2. "Colômbia"
  3. end

. list, clean noobs

     country  
      Canadá  
    Colômbia  

. replace country = "CA" if country=="Canadá"
(1 real change made)

. replace country = "CO" if country=="Colômbia"
(1 real change made)

. list, clean noobs

    country  
         CA  
         CO  

.

So the question becomes, what version of Stata are you using, and how did you create the variable names or country name values?

[Paris Rira]

Hi Prof William,

Thank you for the reply.
The version is -MP 17.0
I did not create the values. That is the administrative dataset.

[William Lisowski]

And how did you get the data from the administrative dataset into Stata?

[Paris Rira]

Well, It was prepared in a DTA file. I just run into STATA. I did nothing with the raw data.

[Paris Rira]

I just received the dataset in SAV file from a colleague and realized that in Eviews the Portuguese names are correct. Once I tried to save data in DTA format to run in the Stata, it all messed up. So is there any way to sort it out?

[William Lisowski]

What is a SAV file? How to you "save data in DTA format" to run into Stata?

I believe the problem is that you need to translate the DTA file created by some program that isn't Stata into a Unicode Stata dataset, so that the ASCII extended characters are translated into the Unicode character set which Stata 14 and later expect. Or possibly the program that created the DTA file can be instructed to create a Stata dataset compatible with Stata 14 and later.

I recommend you read the output of

help unicode_translate

and attempt this conversion.

[Paris Rira]

What is a SAV file? How to you "save data in DTA format" to run into Stata?

.

This dataset has been stored in Eviews format SAV.
Once I open the Eviews file, there is an option in save-- save DTA Stata. So I pick up that option.
I try to read about unicode. Thanks

[Paris Rira]

You are amazing Prof. I am already impressed by your Stata knowledge. The problem has been solved. I really appreciated.

unicode encoding set latin1
  (default encoding now latin1)

. unicode translate cleaned_2020.dta
  (using latin1 encoding)
  (Directory ./bak.stunicode created; please do not delete)

  File summary (before starting):
        1  file(s) specified
        1  file(s) to be examined ...

  File cleaned_2020.dta (Stata dataset)
      all variable names okay, ASCII
      all data labels okay, ASCII
       34 variable labels okay, ASCII
        0 variable labels okay, already UTF-8
       57 variable labels translated
      all value-label names okay, ASCII
        7 value-label contents okay, ASCII
        0 value-label contents okay, already UTF-8
        6 value-label contents translated
      all characteristic names okay, ASCII
      all characteristic contents okay, ASCII
        9 str# variables okay, ASCII
        0 str# variables okay, already UTF-8
        5 str# variables translated
          -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
          File successfully translated
 dataex nationalities
                            
"Áustria"                                                 
"Brasil"                               
"Portugal"                                                       
"Canadá"                                                     
"Colômbia"                                                      
"Portugal"
 "Índia"                                                                      
end

[/code]

[William Lisowski]

I am glad that it went well. Stata Corporation apparently recognized that users don't want to have to learn the messy details of Unicode, they just want a tool that helps them through the process. And for straightforward files like yours it apparently succeeds in being "user-friendly".

Would that all data cleaning were so easy.