help labascii
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Title

     labascii -- Define value labels from ASCII (text) file


Syntax

        labascii [dofile-name] using filename [, options]


     where dofile-name is the do-file to be created

     and filename is the ASCII (text) file, containing the value labels

     Use double quotes if dofile-name or filename contain embedded spaces. If
     filename is specified without extension .txt is the default. For
     dofile-name it is .do.


Description

    labascii defines value labels from a plain text file that contains only
    ASCII characters. In filename each line, starting with a valid value
    label name, marks the beginning of a new value label. The lines in
    between define the integer-to-text mappings. Lines starting with
    non-integer numbers are skipped. Optionally a do-file, containing the
    value label definitions, is created.


Options

    modify modifies existing value labels (see label define).

    parse("pchars") specifies the parsing characters used to determine the
        first word in each line of filename. Default is parse(" ") (see 
        tokenize).

    from(ptrn) specifies pattern in filename that are to be replaced. ptrn is
        ["]ptrn["] [["][ptrn]["]][...].  Specified ptrns are replaced with
        ptrns in to(). If to() is not specified, it defaults to to("") (see 
        filefilter).

    to(ptrn) specifies pattern to replace from() in filename. ptrn is either
        ["]ptrn["] (meaning one pattern), or ["][ptrn]["][...], where the
        number of ptrns equals the number of ptrns in from(). to may only be
        specified with from(), but it is not required (see filefilter).

    skip(numlist) specifies that lines numlist in filename be ignored.

    start(#) specifies start of value label definitions in filename. Lines 1
        to # in filename are ignored.

    stop(#) specifies end of value label definitions in filename. Lines in
        filename following # are ignored.

    replace replaces the do-file if it already exists. May only be specified
        if a dofile-name is specified.

    nodefine creates a do-file containing value label definitions, but does
        not run it automatically. May only be specified if dofile-name is
        specified.


Examples

    Suppose a log-file, created as

        . log using foo ,text
        . sysuse nlsw88 ,clear
        . label list
        . log close

    First, we clear all value labels from memory.

        . label drop _all

    To (re-)define the value labels from foo.log we type

        . labascii using foo.log ,parse(": ")

    We used option parse(": "), because value label names in foo.log are
    followed by a colon (:), which makes them invalid value label names.
    Since no value label in the nlsw88 dataset uses a colon as a valid
    charcater, we could have also typed

        . labascii using foo.log ,from(:)

    or, more explicitly

        . labascii using foo.log ,from(:) to("")

    removing all colons before extracting value labels from foo.log.

    Optionally we may want to save the do-file used to define the value
    labels as bar.do. We do so typing

        . labascii bar using foo.log ,parse(": ")

    Note: I recommend not removing periods (.), because this leads to
    problems defining labels for extended missing values (see missing) and
    the handling of non-integer values. If integer values are directly
    followed by a period in the ASCII file, you do not need to specify
    parse().

    Whenever you parse on period, specifying parse(". ") is usually better
    than parse(.).


Saved results

    labascii saves the following in r():

    Macros
      r(labelnames)  value label names


Author

    Daniel Klein, University of Bamberg, klein.daniel.81@gmail.com


Also see

    Online: label, file
    if installed: varlabdef, labutil2, txtlabdef (old)