reshape

[Varsha Vaishnav]

Hello,

I'm reshaping my data from long to wide as follows:

reshape wide x, i(id) j(yearMonth)

The names of the j variables do not come as x_2001m1 x_2001m2, and so on. Ho can I get the names in this format? An example dataset:

* Example generated by -dataex-. To install: ssc install dataex
clear
input int year byte month float(x id temp)
2000  1  -1.4952 1 480
2000  2  -1.5653 1 481
2000  3    -1.53 1 482
2000  4  -1.5038 1 483
2000  5  -1.5184 1 484
2000  6  -1.8732 1 485
2000  7  -.53273 1 486
2000  8  -.33476 1 487
2000  9  -.38694 1 488
2000 10  -.60296 1 489
2000 11  -.61594 1 490
2000 12  -.61234 1 491
2001  1  -.59847 1 492
2001  2    -.644 1 493
2001  3  -.61931 1 494
2001  4  -.60525 1 495
2001  5  -.63979 1 496
2001  6 -.024683 1 497
2001  7  -.40757 1 498
2001  8  -.30469 1 499
2001  9  -.30957 1 500
2001 10  -.27522 1 501
2001 11    -.284 1 502
2001 12  -.25536 1 503
2002  1  -.24324 2 504
2002  2  -.22428 2 505
2002  3  -.26123 2 506
2002  4  -.27012 2 507
2002  5   -.3093 2 508
2002  6 -.060188 2 509
2002  7  -1.2304 2 510
2002  8  -1.3403 2 511
2002  9  -1.1992 2 512
2002 10  -1.2654 2 513
2002 11  -1.2676 2 514
2002 12  -1.2278 2 515
2003  1  -1.2483 2 516
2003  2  -1.2374 2 517
2003  3  -1.2214 2 518
2003  4   -1.205 2 519
2003  5  -1.2098 2 520
2003  6  -1.7511 2 521
2003  7   .12341 2 522
2003  8   .73705 2 523
2003  9   .75044 2 524
2003 10   .77955 2 525
2003 11   .79881 2 526
2003 12   .81725 2 527
2004  1   .83258 3 528
2004  2   .81351 3 529
2004  3   .74627 3 530
2004  4   .76489 3 531
2004  5   .84338 3 532
2004  6   .95598 3 533
2004  7  -.20344 3 534
2004  8  -.12863 3 535
2004  9  -.16902 3 536
2004 10  -.10092 3 537
2004 11  -.11268 3 538
2004 12  -.10501 3 539
end
format %tm temp

Thank you.

[Nick Cox]

It's unclear what is in your variable yearMonth as it's not part of the data example -- or indeed why you would want to do this. Long layout is preferable for almost all Stata purposes.

This works with your data example.

gen index = "_" + strofreal(ym(year, month), "%tm")

drop year month temp 

reshape wide x, i(id) j(index) string

[Varsha Vaishnav]

Thank you, Nick. And sorry, I forgot to rename temp as yearMonth.

[Nick Cox]

I see. Your code would just produce variables like x480 x481 ... or so I imagine. reshape doesn't know that you want the display format to be used and there's no way to tell it that directly. Indeed, as you want _ and m to be part of the variable name, you need the string option as well as a variable constructed for the purpose.