Re: st: Year to start 1st April

[Richard Williams <Richard.A.Williams.5@nd.edu>]

At 03:46 PM 3/7/2004 -0500, Nick Winter wrote:
> At 11:20 PM 3/5/2004 -0500, Richard Williams wrote:
> > Whoops.  I think the original solution I posted quickly gets off a 
> > day.  I think it is fixable, but how about this instead:
> >
> > . gen finyear = year(datevisit)
> >
> > . replace finyear = finyear - 1 if month(datevisit) < 4
> Just a quick note to note, as it were, that this approach can be done in 
> one line:
>
>    . gen finyear = year(datevisit) - (month(datevisit)<4)
>
> (This works because the logical condition will evaluate to 0 or 1, as 
> appropriate.
>
> --Nick Winter
I had tried to do something like that but it wasn't working because I 
didn't have the parentheses on the final part of the expression right.  For 
those determined to use as few lines as possible, here is yet another 
spacesaver:

. gen finyear = cond(month(datevisit) < 
4,  year(datevisit)-1,  year(datevisit))

The -cond- option seems like a nice alternative to a generate/replace combo 
of commands.

My favorite solution so far is the ncyear solution suggested by Nick Cox - 
not so much because it saves typing but because it saves you a lot of time 
figuring out what to type.  But, I suppose there is something to be said 
for avoiding the use of addons for relatively simple tasks, e.g. if the 
code will be run on different machines then portability is easier if you 
stick to built-in functions.

*
*   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/