[Andrew Musau]

Just a cautionary note: encode will work for categorical variables. In case you have numbers stored as strings, e.g., a count of the number of people in a household, see

help destring

instead.

[Omotola Oladapo]

Just a cautionary note: encode will work for categorical variables. In case you have numbers stored as strings, e.g., a count of the number of people in a household, see

help destring

instead.

I tried the destring command, using the code below but it stated that it is a nonnumerical character and no generate. What is the function of my codebook at this point? Because I created a code book and is on my data file too. What should I do.

destring gender, generate(Gender)

[Andrew Musau]

Gender is a categorical variable. With 2 levels, you will usually code it as a 0/1 indicator and rename it using the positive category (e.g., female=1 if gender is female and zero if gender is male). So encode is fine. You will want to only destring numbers which are stored as strings.

[Omotola Oladapo]

Gender is a categorical variable. With 2 levels, you will usually code it as a 0/1 indicator and rename it using the positive category (e.g., female=1 if gender is female and zero if gender is male). So encode is fine. You will want to only destring numbers which are stored as strings.

This is helpful, thanks.