Pedro Martins
>
> i want to save, in a while/do loop, certain observations of
> a data set into another data set without closing the first
> data set. it seems that -post- is the command i should use
> but apparently i'm not following its syntax correctly.
>
> in a do-file, i wrote:
>
> postfile x1 x2 using filename, replace
> local i=1
> while `i' <=20 {
> here i change the sample and do things to variable y
> post x1 x2 if y==1
> local i=`i'+1
> }
> postclose
>
> x1 and x2 are the two variables i want to save in the
> secondary dataset (without closing the primary one). can you help?!
>
Think of -post- as writing one record (one
line) to a file each time it is invoked.
That may not be what happens physically,
i.e. as far as your computer is concerned,
but it is the way to think about -post-.
Therefore, -post- must be given expressions,
each of which is, or evaluates to, single numbers.
Also they must be parenthesised. Otherwise,
Stata's interpreter could see results like
2 -1
and get it into its little head to
evaluate that output as an algebraic expression.
You can only use -post- to write variables
if you loop over observations and write
values from each observation out one at a time.
Your syntax requires Stata to be smart
enough to guess that you want some current
value of -x1- and -x2- to be posted each
time around the loop, but Stata needs
that to be spelled out.
For all that, it is not at all clear
that -post- is what will serve you
best. On this information, -outfile-
seems more suitable.
Nick
[email protected]
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