Adding zeros to a string variable

[Sugandha Huria]

Hi,

Please let me know how can I add zeros to a string variable. for example, in my dataset, there is a variable called nic_code, and it ranges from 01000 to 99999. However, in the raw data, 01000, 02000,... have been written as 01, 02,.. only and it is a string variable. Could you please tell me how can I convert this into a string variable with 5-digits? for other numbers like 99988, the data looks ok.

thank you so much

[Nick Cox]

clear
input str5 broken 
"99888"
"01" 
"02"
end 

gen fixed = broken + substr("00000", 1, 5 - length(broken))

list 

      +----------------+
     | broken   fixed |
     |----------------|
  1. |  99888   99888 |
  2. |     01   01000 |
  3. |     02   02000 |
     +----------------+

Extra detail: it does no harm to push your strings through trim() just to remove any leading or trailing spaces.

[Sugandha Huria]

Thank you so much for your reply. Thanks a lot.