CODEWITHSUNDEEP
stata
trinitysara
trinitysara

Reputation: 185

How to identify common variables before merging?

I am merging two datasets in Stata, both of which have more than 300 variables. Upon merging, I learned that the two datasets have at least 20 variables in common - some are strings in one dataset, and floats in others.

Does anyone know of a simple way to find out how many other variables the datasets have in common without merging first?

I know that I can, for example, add a prefix to variable names in one dataset and then compare the variables once the datasets are merged, but I was wondering if there was a faster way to do this. Like some sort of list that simply identifies a list of the common variables.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 391

Answers (1)

trinitysara
trinitysara

Reputation: 185

Answer based on advice from @NickCox:

describe using StateWelfareData.dta, varlist
local welfare `r(varlist)'

clear

describe using StatePolicyData.dta, varlist
local merged `r(varlist)' `welfare'

local duplicates: list dups merged
display "`duplicates'"

Upvotes: 2

Related Questions