Manipulating strings

[Kanyo Ledi]

Hi
I am trying to convert my strings to lower case or uppercase.
I used the command: strlower (variable_name), but this returned a r(199) - command not recognized error.
I also received similar error when I tried strupper (variable_name).

please kindly assist thanks

[Girish Venkataraman]

Without seeing you actual data or code, it is hard to troubleshoot. I am not a moderator but folks usually share their data via -dataex- and post their actual code as they seek help. See example below for the auto dataset (no spaces between strlower and (make).

sysuse auto, clear

gen wanted = strlower(make)
gen wanted2 = strupper(make)

make wanted wanted2
"AMC Concord" "amc concord" "AMC CONCORD"
"AMC Pacer" "amc pacer" "AMC PACER"
"AMC Spirit" "amc spirit" "AMC SPIRIT"
"Buick Century" "buick century" "BUICK CENTURY"

[Nick Cox]

strlower() and strupper() are functions, not commands. In Stata a function can only be used inside an appropriate command. If foo is the name of a string variable then

replace foo = strlower(foo)

is more likely to be what you want.

[Kanyo Ledi]

Thank you Nick and Girish, the solutions you gave worked perfectly!!