Encoding string variables with more than 65,536 unique values

[anneg...@gmail.com]

I am trying to encode a variable with 151,000+ unique values which STATA won't do because the default limit is 65,000+ !  Does anyone know if there is any way of increasing this limit?

 

I would like to avoid having to do this in batches and then 'append' back together if possible, as below this 151,000+ variable lies a further variable with more values!

 

Any suggestions much appreciated.

[J]

Can you explain why you want to encode a variable with 151K values?

J

[J]

If you are assigning unique IDs by postcode, you don't want to use encode. Encode is for replacing long string values with short numeric values. Use bysort on postcode with egen.

J