merge taking a long time due to changing variables

[Collin James]

Hi all,

I have a merge that is taking a long time--it shows many rows of things such as

"variable fname was str9, now str26 to accomodate using data's values"

Is there a way to change variables to the same format quicker? I am not quite sure.
Thanks

[Clyde Schechter]

You could do this in both data sets first

ds, has(type string)
format (`r(varlist)') str2045

Then -merge- them. And then

quietly compress

I don't know how much, if any, time this will actually save you, but it's worth a try.