Creating a New Variable if Another Contains a Specific Number Value

[Ash Morgan]

Hello,

I am trying to create a new variable if another numeric variable contains a specific value. From a survey, the respondent could select any option that applies. This creates a variable that contains a series of numbers (1, 123, 234, 12345, etc.). Like below:

Var1
1
12
145
467
2567

I'd like to create new variables so I can count how many times each value was selected (so how many times did respondents select the first option (which will be recorded as a 1). So, in this case, the first option was selected 3 times. So, something like:

generate option1 = 0; replace option1 = 1 if Var1 [contains the number 1]



Thank you.

[Rich Goldstein]

there is no reason to do this in 2 steps; try this:

gen option1=strpos(string(Var1),"1")>0

note that I have assumed here that Var1 is numeric - if you had used -dataex- as requested in the FAQ, I would know

also, note that you can put all of this in a loop: use forval as in:

forval i=1/7 {
   gen option`i'=strpos(string(Var1),"`i'")>0
}

[Ash Morgan]

Rich,

Thank you very much.