Issue while creating 0 /1 variable from categorical variable

[gaurav9839]

Hi ,

I am facing the below problem while creating the dummy variable for the variable age_restriction

1- The variable is a character variable and contains 9 records (3,4,34,35,45,3U,4U and 5U)....

2-when i try to create the dummy variable it does not take the 3 as character variable and assumes it as numeric variable.

3- The code which i use for creating dummy variable is  below 

if age_restriction='3' then Age_R1=1;  else Age_R1=0;

i always get the value of Age_R1  =0 even though if age_restriction contains 3 as its value .

can you please help me on this error 

[Kurt_Bremser · Accepted solution]

You most probably have an alignment problem (the '3' is not the first character in age_restriction).

Use the left() function to left-align the variable before checking for its contents.