It's sometimes useful in these situations (experimenting with code in a do
file) to make use of Stata's -tempvar- command. You can declare a bunch of
tempvars near the beginning of your sequence of commands, and code using these
(remembering the left-and-right quote delimiters!), knowing that Stata will
automatically drop the tempvars at the end of running your commands.
So, as a silly example:
sysuse auto, clear
tempvar var1 var2
gen `var1' = price*2
gen `var2' = !foreign
label var `var2' "US made"
table `var2', c(mean price mean `var1')
once you are sure you have your code correct you may wish to do a search &
replace with a permanent name (or just maybe elevate the do code to ado
status).
Phil
Quoting Alan Acock <[email protected]>:
> When I run a series of commands to generate new variables in a do file and
> realize I made a mistake on one of them, I would like to fix the mistake,
> highlight the section of commands, and run the selection. When I do this,
> Stata says the generated variables already exist. Sooooo, I need to drop
> each variable I created in the series of commands, and then re-run them. I
> assume this is a way Stata has to prevent accidently replacing a variable.
> QUESTION: How can I have the gen and egen commands replace the variables I
> want it to replace rathr than having to first drop them???
> Alan Acock
> [email protected]
>
> *
> * For searches and help try:
> * http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
> * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
> * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
>
--
Philip Ryan
Associate Professor
Department of Public Health
University of Adelaide
5005 South Australia
AUSTRALIA
CRICOS Provider Number 00123M
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