Inverst function of char()

[Tony Li]

Dear Listers,

I am looking for a inverse function of char(). The char() function maps 90 to the character Z. There should be an inverse function which can maps Z to 90. Is there already such a function?

Thanks

Tony

[Nick Cox]

Mata has an ascii() function.

[Tony Li]

Yes, I know. But should there be such a function in Stata?

[Nick Cox]

Should? Yes, in my view.

[daniel klein]

Add it to the wishlist for Stata 14. Maybe one could add the possibility to write our own functions in Stata - but I do not think this will happen.

Best
Daniel

[Matthew J. Baker]

Tony --

Given what Nick pointed out, you could make a little wrapper for mata that just displays/returns the character. I've also found the package "asciiplot" to be useful - it prints out a table of all the ascii characters. Anyways, this a little sloppy, but I think it works:

program ascii, rclass
    syntax anything
    mata: printf("Ascii code for `anything':");ascii("`anything'")
    tempname char
    mata: st_numscalar("char",ascii("`anything'"))
    return scalar char=char 
end
/* Try it out */
ascii s
return list

[Nick Cox]

A small cosmetic point is that tempname char seems redundant, as you never use that tempname.

There is also scope for interactive use, here Stata calling Mata.

 
. mata : ascii("s")
  115

[Tony Li]

thanks for the suggestions!