At 12:06 PM 4/25/2003 -0700, Dan Sabath wrote:
Hello,
I am very new to Stata and am having some difficulty wrapping my brain
around Stata's methods of data processing.
[...]
I wrote a "program" to calculate the value based on args passed into it.
"checkfoo" returns a 1 or 0 depending if one of the arglist matches the
first arg.
so r(checked) = 1 if `k' or `l' is equal to `j'
otherwise r(checked) = 0.
/*******vastly simplified**********/
local j = 1
gen k = 2
gen l = 3
while `j' < 6 {
checkfoo `j' `k' `l' /* r(checked) returned equal to 1 when j = 2 or 3*/
replace k = 4 if r(checked) == 1
local j = `j' + 1
}
/***********************************/
I would like it to replace "k" on the 2nd and 3rd time through the loop
but not at any other time.
I would be happy if I could just do
/* psudocode */
replace k = 4 if checkfoo `j' `k' `l' /* with checkfoo evaluating true or
false */
[...]
Nick Cox has replied to this, but I would like to add some comments.
Your code generates variables k and l. Then you pass macros `k' and `l' to
checkfoo. Variables and macros are different kinds of entities. If you
haven't defied these macros (and they are not defined in your code sample)
then they are empty, and you are only passing one argument (`j') to checkfoo.
Note, also that
gen k = 2
gen l = 3
set the variables k and l to 2 and 3 -- for all observations in the entire
dataset.
When your loop comes to...
replace k = 4 if r(checked) == 1
then k will be replaced with 4 -- again, for all observations in the entire
dataset, since r(checked) is a scalar quantity.
(Actually, this is one place where it would be equivalent to write...
if r(checked) {
replace k = 4
}
but in general, there is a big difference between the -if- statement and
the -if- qualifier. There is a FAQ on this subject.)
Since this replace k = 4 will affect every observation, there seems little
point to doing it. Presumably there will be other code that you have
omitted. But, since this -replace- affects all observations equally, it
might better have been a scalar or a macro,
But if, as I might suspect, you are thinking of looping through the
observations, then your code is not correct. But then, most likely, there
is no point to correcting it as such; what you want to do is probably
easily done in a few statements, once you get the idea of how Stata
works. In fact, your "pseudocode" sample is almost (but not quite) a
correct Stata statement -- if you are thinking of replacing k in some
observations and not others.
Your pseudocode sample will not work, because in...
replace k = 4 if checkfoo `j' `k' `l' /* with checkfoo evaluating true or
false */
you cannot create your own function (checkfoo) that can be referenced in an
expression.
You can, on the other hand, create a variable to carry the info that you
want. You can also write a program to generate that variable. It is not
clear whether you intended checkfoo to be such a program. (As shown in your
example, it would appear that it yields scalar information, but you may
have had something else in mind.)
Overall I would suggest these points:
1: Understand the difference between variables, scalars and
macros. (Scalars and macros are similar in that they have a single value.
Variables have a set of values: one for each observation. Note, also that
if a program returns something in r(), that returned value is a scalar or
macro.)
2: Most Stata statements that operate on the data do so on the whole
dataset at once. (Actually, there is a sequential aspect to the action that
processes the statement, but you usually don't need to think about it.) It
may help to remember that, for example, in you code...
gen k = 2
gen l = 3
first, k is created and set to 2 for all observations; then l is created
and set to 3 for all observations.
3: Understand the difference between the -if- statement and the -if- qualifier.
4: Looping is useful for actions that occur at a level that is logically
higher than the individual observations. You almost never need to loop
through the observations. If you are attempting to write code to loop
through the observations, you probably are not thinking about the problem
correctly. (Sometimes it is necessary, and I have done it -- *very* rarely.)
I hop this helps.
-- David
David Kantor
Institute for Policy Studies
Johns Hopkins University
[email protected]
410-516-5404
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