Replacing quotes from a string variable

[Carlo Fiorio]

Hi,

I am struggling with a possibly very trivial issue. I need to get rid of inverted commas (") from a string variable.

If I try string functions such as:

replace v1 = substr(v1, """,.)

I am returned with the error that quotes are too few.

Would you please suggest me a solution?

Best,

Carlo

[Clyde Schechter]

Right. Stata thinks that the interior " closes the first one, and so the third is left hanging. That is why Stata Corp. created compound double quotes, to handle quoting expressions that themselves contain quotes. Try

replace v1 = substr(v1, `"""',.)

Note: It is hard for the human eye to distinguish a pair of consecutive ' characters from a single " character. So I recommend you copy and paste the above into your code and not try to type it manually.

[Carlo Fiorio]

Thanks Clyde, it works fine!

Best, carlo

[Nick Cox]

I don't believe this thread so far. I think everyone has been meaning to write

replace v1 = subinstr(v1, `"""', "", .)

as none of the substr() examples given would work even to extract substrings.

Another way to do it:

  
replace v1 = subinstr(v1, char(34), "", .)

[Clyde Schechter]

Nick is, of course, correct.

In responding to #1, I immediately noticed that putting the " character inside compound double quotes was the gist of the problem. I didn't even look carefully enough at the rest of the code to notice that an argument was missing, and I just copied and edited the original code into my response. Sorry for that carelessness.