NAAM: Stata module to provide consistent string encoding, ID hashing, and label management

naam addresses a common and consequential problem in large-scale survey and administrative data work: encoding string variables consistently across multiple datasets or rounds. Stata's built-in encode assigns numeric codes alphabetically within each dataset independently. When a new category appears in a later round -- a new district, a new industry, a new response option -- all alphabetically subsequent codes shift. Any merge or append across rounds then produces silently wrong results with no error message. This is particularly common in multi-round household surveys, administrative panel datasets, and any project where data arrives in separate files over time. naam solves this by encoding once, saving the exact string-to-numeric mapping to an Excel workbook, and reapplying those mappings instantly to every subsequent file. The same string always receives the same numeric code. New categories are detected automatically, assigned the next available code, and the Excel file is updated. The workbook also serves as a permanent, human-readable audit record of every mapping in the project.