How to delete everyhing in square brackets?

[Alex Richards]

Hey guys, I would have the following question. I have a variable, that sometimes contains something in square brackets. I would like to delete everything that is in sqaure brackets.
To illustrate:

 
number
obervation


1
[blablabla] Real Mardrid


2
[oink wuff] Arsenal London


3
[tztzt] Manchester City


4
[blablabla] Juventus Turin

So I would love to create a new variable -- without all the mess that is in square brackets:

 
number
obervation
new_variable

1
[blablabla] Real Mardrid
Real Madrid

2
[oink wuff] Arsenal London
Arsenal London

3
[tztzt] Manchester City
Manchester City

4
[blablabla] Juventus Turin
Juventus Turin

Is it possible in Stata to create such a new variable?

[Nick Cox]

If it's as simple as your examples imply, then one way is

gen team = trim(substr(data, strpos(incoming_data, "]") + 1, .))

[Robert Picard]

If it's more complicated, the following could be used

clear
input n str100 s
1    "[blablabla] Real Mardrid"
2    "[oink wuff] Arsenal London"
3    "[tztzt] Manchester City"
4    "[blablabla] Juventus Turin"
5    "stuff [blablabla] Juventus Turin"
end

gen s2 = trim(regexr(s,"\[.+\] *",""))
list

The "\[.+\] *" pattern breaks down to

1. "\[" a left bracket (the backslash is an escape character because square brackets are special characters)
2. ".+" any character, one or more times
3. "\]" a right bracket
4. " *" zero or more spaces (to remove trailing spaces)