Ordering the results of a tabulation of a string variable

[jrhoworth]

I am trying to change the order of the tabulation for household income, the order comes up as shown below:


. tabulate hincome

Household income |
(annual) | Freq. Percent Cum.
------------------+-----------------------------------
0 - £19,999 | 12 12.00 12.00
£100,000 and over | 14 14.00 26.00
£20,000 - £39,999 | 16 16.00 42.00
£40,000 - £59,999 | 20 20.00 62.00
£60,000 - £79,999 | 24 24.00 86.00
£80,000 - £99,999 | 14 14.00 100.00
------------------+-----------------------------------
Total | 100 100.00


I have tried using the command:

. label define order 1 "0-£19999" 2 "£20000-£39999" 3 "£40000-£59999" 4 "£60000-£79999" 5 "£80000-£99999" 6 "£100000 and over"

but it hasn't moved "£100,000 and over" to the bottom.

Any suggestions how I can move it? Thank you

[Rich Goldstein]

is hincome really a string variable? if yes, -label- won't help as you can't -label- strings (further, you need to assign the labels after defining them anyway; see - h label-); you could -encode- this and then label (or just use the label option to the -encode- command to then force the order)

[jrhoworth]

I have used encode to convert hincome from a string variable to a numeric one and then used label define but it hasn't changed the order?

[jrhoworth]

. describe hincome

storage display value
variable name type format label variable label
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
hincome long %17.0g hincome Household income (annual)

[jrhoworth]

nevermind, i've figured it out!!

[Roberto Ferrer]

This does not solve your problem but you say

I have used encode to convert hincome from a string variable to a numeric one

and help encode states:

Do not use encode if varname contains numbers that merely happen to be stored as strings; instead, use generate newvar = real(varname) or destring; see real() or [D] destring.