Variable label
Variable label helps us to know what the variable is about. This label will also conviently shows up as axis name if we were to draw a graph,
describe happiness
storage display value
variable name type format label variable label
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happiness float %9.0g
We can create labels to describe what the variable is measuring using label variable var_name.
label variable happiness "Feelings of happiness"
describe happiness
storage display value
variable name type format label variable label
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happiness float %9.0g Feelings of happiness
Value label
For categorical variables, we can create labels to show what does each level of the variable represents. This is helpful when we do a frequency table or fraw a graph.
To define the labels, we first use the command label define label_name to create a new label and give it a name. Then we specify the numerical value representing the category/level, then specify the label using a character string enclosed in " " double quotes.
Lastly, we need to apply the label we have created (happiness_label) to the corresponding variable (happiness).
// first define the label
label define happiness_label 1 "Very Happy" 2 "Rather Happy" 3 "Not very happy" 4 "Not at all happy"
// then apply the label to the variable
label values happiness happiness_label
tab happiness
Feelings of |
happiness | Freq. Percent Cum.
-----------------+-----------------------------------
-5 | 6 0.01 0.01
-2 | 238 0.27 0.27
-1 | 514 0.57 0.85
Very Happy | 29,256 32.66 33.51
Rather Happy | 45,786 51.12 84.63
Not very happy | 11,214 12.52 97.15
Not at all happy | 2,551 2.85 100.00
-----------------+-----------------------------------
Total | 89,565 100.00