st: Re: Frequencies and string variables

[Roger Newson <roger.newson@kcl.ac.uk>]

At 08:42 24/02/04 -0500, W. Robert Newberry wrote:
> Here's a dumb newbie question: how do I generate frequencies of string 
> variables?
>
> What I have is data with gender coded as "M" or "F", and I want to know 
> the relative frequencies. Were I in SAS, I'd use Proc Freq, but the same 
> approach doesn't seem to worth with Stata. A little help, please?
The -tabulate- command will do this, if you only want your frequencies and 
percentages to be displayed, and not saved.

You do not say what version of Stata you have. However, if it is Stata 8, 
then the nearest equivalent to -proc freq- is the -xcontract- package, 
downloadable from SSC. This allows the user to list frequencies and 
percentages and/or save them in an output data set, just like -proc freq-. 
To find out more, type

ssc desc xcontract

in Web-aware Stata. The -xcollapse- package is also downloadable from SSC, 
and does a similar job to -proc means- or -proc summary- in SAS.

I hope this helps.

Roger


--
Roger Newson
Lecturer in Medical Statistics
Department of Public Health Sciences
King's College London
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Opinions expressed are those of the author, not the institution.

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