Problem with "destring"

[Ines Simac]

Dear Stata users,

I am struggling with destringing my data. String observations in the form of e.g. "12.5", Stata returns 125. How come? And what can I do to remedy this?
The command I have used is: destring, replace ignore (n.a.)

Thanks a whole lot in advance,

Ines

[Rich Goldstein]

you need to show us the exact command you gave Stata

Rich

[Ines Simac]

"destring, replace ignore (n.a.)" is the exact command I have typed to destring my entire data set.

[Joe Canner]

Ines,

destring is ignoring the characters "n", "a", and ".", as per your ignore() option. If you want to keep decimals you should probably use a different method to get rid of the "n.a." strings. Take a look at the subinstr() function instead (or prior to using destring).

Regards,
Joe

[Brendan Halpin]

ignore(n.a.) makes State ignore the decimal dot

[Ines Simac]

Ooh, I get it! How silly of me...
Thanks a lot, you guys!