st: problem with "statacommand if baz == float(#)"

["Guillaume R. Frechette" <gfrechette@hbs.edu>]

Dear Statlisters: I apologize in advance as this is another version of a 
basic question that has been dealt with before on the list and in the FAQ, 
but I don't know how to solve this particular variant of it. The basic 
problem is to get Stata to recognize number that have a finite 
representation in decimal but not in binary (or a finite representation 
with more digits than the precision of Stata). For example:

. gen foo = 1/3

. tab foo if foo == 1/3
no observations

To which the solution is

. tab foo if foo == float(1/3)

        foo |      Freq.     Percent        Cum.
------------+-----------------------------------
   .3333333 |       1257      100.00      100.00
------------+-----------------------------------
      Total |       1257      100.00

But what about the following example

. gen foo = 1/3

. gen bar = 1/3

. gen baz = 1-foo-bar

. tab baz if baz == float(1/3)
no observations

. tab baz

        baz |      Freq.     Percent        Cum.
------------+-----------------------------------
   .3333333 |       1257      100.00      100.00
------------+-----------------------------------
      Total |       1257      100.00

The float command doesn't solve the problem. Can someone tell me how to get 
Stata to understand what I mean by 1/3?

Thanks in advance.

g


Guillaume R. Frechette
http://www.people.hbs.edu/gfrechette/html/econ.htm


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