Changing semicolons to commas (or vice versa) in a string variable

[Oliver Scott]

Hi everyone,

I have a variable in my STATA dataset which (often) has numerous numbers separated by both semicolons and commas. For example, one observation for this variable might read 14,15,17;2;9;12. I would like to separate these numbers out into a new variable, and I think a sensible first step would be to change the semicolons to commas (or vice versa) before doing so, because if I simply split variable, p(",") or split variable, p(";"), the numbers don't split correctly if there is a number between a semicolon and comma. Does anyone know how to do this or have a workaround to my problem?

Warm regards, Oliver

[Nick Cox]

 replace foo = subinstr(foo, ";", ",", .) 

first is one solution, but a better one is documented:

 split foo, parse(, ;)

See also https://www.statalist.org/forums/help#spelling

[Oliver Scott]

 replace foo = subinstr(foo, ";", ",", .) 

first is one solution, but a better one is documented:

 split foo, parse(, ;)

See also https://www.statalist.org/forums/help#spelling

Many thanks Nick, much appreciated. Oliver