The DHS Program User Forum
Discussions regarding The DHS Program data and results
Home » Data » Dataset use in Stata » I need help on using select to reduce DHS variables
I need help on using select to reduce DHS variables [message #1326] Sat, 15 February 2014 08:24 Go to next message
Bathandwas is currently offline  Bathandwas
Messages: 1
Registered: December 2013
Location: South Africa
Member

I am currently working on DHS data for Namibia and my data set cant open on STATA IC because there are too many variables on the DHS than that stata module can take. I have read somewhere that a software called select can help by reducing the number of variables to the amount that can be accomodated on stata. I have already downloaded select, can someone help me on how this whole process works.

bathandwas
Re: I need help on using select to reduce DHS variables [message #1369 is a reply to message #1326] Wed, 19 February 2014 08:48 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Liz-DHS
Messages: 1516
Registered: February 2013
Senior Member
Dear User,
Please see the link http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/data-management/selecting- subset-of-observations/.
It is from Stata's website.
Thank you!

Re: I need help on using select to reduce DHS variables [message #1371 is a reply to message #1369] Wed, 19 February 2014 12:36 Go to previous messageGo to next message
user-rhs is currently offline  user-rhs
Messages: 132
Registered: December 2013
Senior Member
Dear Bathandwas,
Refer to my post from February 6 on calling specific variables into Stata IC as a work around to the variable limit issue:
http://userforum.measuredhs.com/index.php?t=msg&th=778&a mp;a mp;a mp;goto=1294&S=794b1ba73d597c13150b19487e4c63df#msg_1294

Please let me know whether this was useful.

hth,
RHS

[Updated on: Wed, 19 February 2014 12:51]

Report message to a moderator

Re: I need help on using select to reduce DHS variables [message #1404 is a reply to message #1369] Sat, 22 February 2014 13:58 Go to previous message
Liz-DHS
Messages: 1516
Registered: February 2013
Senior Member
Dear User,
Thank you again for your post. You mentioned you downloaded the SELECT utility already. In case you need to download again, the link is provided below.
It is important to note that SELECT only works with data definitions (.SPS or .DCT) created by CSPro export applications. Select does not work with the system data files (.SAV or .DTA). Attached is the Readme file for the utility. The Readme file is also included in the download. It has a complete set of instructions for using this utility.

It would be useful to know where in the process you are having a problem. Is it during the installation of the utility, or after it has been installed?

I downloaded and installed on my system. I have Windows XP Professional as my operating system. I unzipped the files to a Select2 directory on the root of my C: drive. (Select2 is the default name which gets assigned). If you have downloaded data files from our website, you can find a .DCT and .DO file in the flat files distributed with your data. In my case I used NMIRFL.zip, unzipped that and found the needed files.

From there I followed the instructions in the Readme.doc file (only 1 page) and was successful. I am attaching a picture (.jpg) file so you can see what the screen should look like. (yours will have your own selection of variables, mine was only a test)

Download for Select Utilityhttp://measuredhs.com/data/Data-Tools-and-Manuals.cfm

You may also find the 3rd video on Opening Data Sets in STATA, SPSS, SAS useful.
http://measuredhs.com/data/Using-DataSets-for-Analysis.cfm

If this does not answer your question, please feel free to post again.

Thank you!

Previous Topic: Difficulty analysing IR data for many countries
Next Topic: I need help identifying families who live in the same dwelling.
Goto Forum:
  


Current Time: Thu Mar 28 07:35:59 Coordinated Universal Time 2024