Dear Richard,
Thanks for that. You are right, all six vars have identical values.
The mistake is that I've implemented a nested loop, whereas I should
have been using a parallel loop.
The examples of parallel loops I've seen (mostly courtesy of Nick
Cox) use a local macro which increments inside the loop, something
which won't work here because my names are not numerically based.
At the risk of revisiting a brief discussion held on the list during
early April, I've dug out my old favourite (-for-) and found a way of
implementing my task as follows:
begin snippet==========
for var ajbmspay ajbmssec ajbmswrk ajbmshrs ajbmsflx ajbmsall ///
\ any pay security work hours flexibility overall: ///
recode X (-4 -3 -1=.), gen(a_Y)
for var a_pay-a_overall \ any pay security work hours flexibility overall: ///
la var X "Satisfaction with Y"
end snippet============
This code works fine, but no doubt, there is a way of condensing these
two statements into one, and no doubt, there is also a way of using
the `modern' foreach to achieve the task. I will keep plugging away at
this.
Richard, you're right also, it could be done easily with brute
force, but I'm trying to wean myself of -for- in favour of -foreach-
and so was experimenting with an approach which can always be
generalised to large numbers of variables (where brute force is not an
option).
I've also checked -recode-, and while the manual shows how multiple
variables can be recoded in one statement, there is no example of how
one might implement the -gen- option for multiple variables. Perhaps
someone on the list knows the trick?
Thanks again for a prompt response at a late hour in your neck of the
woods.
--
Kind regards,
Ian
=====================
Ian Watson
Senior Researcher
acirrt
University of Sydney
NSW 2006
Australia
======================
Monday, June 7, 2004, 4:31:39 PM, you wrote:
RW> At 03:36 PM 6/7/2004 +1000, you wrote:
>>Dear statalist,
>>
>> Can anyone spot the mistake with the following snippet of code.
>>
>> It actually works fine, and recodes and labels the variable
>> in the way I wish, but in exiting (?) the loops it runs into problems.
>>
>> Any advice would be most appreciated.
RW> I believe what is happening is that ajbmspay gets recoded 6 times, creating
RW> new variables a_pay, a_security, etc. These 6 vars all have identical
RW> values. The outer loop then moves on to ajbmswrk, and tries to recode it
RW> into a_pay. Because a_pay already exists, you get an error message. In
RW> short, the new vars may have the labels you want, but they don't have the
RW> values; all 6 are just recodes of ajbmspay.
RW> In SPSS, I would do this with DO REPEAT commands. My Stata programming
RW> isn't as strong, but since I may be one of the few members of the list who
RW> happens to be awake right now I'll offer some possible workarounds:
RW> foreach x in pay sec wrk hrs flx all {
RW> recode ajbms`x'(-4 -3 -1=.), gen(a_`x')
RW> la var a_`x' "Satisfaction with `x'"
RW> }
RW> I think this does the recodes right, but doesn't give you the var names or
RW> exact labels that you wanted. Better programmers than I can probably tell
RW> you a better solution. On the other hand, it is only 6 variables, so
RW> unless you need to do this sort of thing routinely it may be easier just to
RW> use brute force to write the handful of lines required to do this without
RW> looping.
RW> Or,
RW> recode ajbmspay ajbmssec ajbmswrk ajbmshrs ajbmsflx ajbmsall(-4 -3 -1=.),
RW> gen(a_pay a_security a_work a_hours a_flexibility a_overall)
RW> foreach y in pay security work hours flexibility overall{
RW> la var a_`y' "Satisfaction with `y'"
RW> }
RW> -------------------------------------------
RW> Richard Williams, Notre Dame Dept of Sociology
RW> OFFICE: (574)631-6668, (574)631-6463
RW> FAX: (574)288-4373
RW> HOME: (574)289-5227
RW> EMAIL: [email protected]
RW> WWW (personal): http://www.nd.edu/~rwilliam
RW> WWW (department): http://www.nd.edu/~soc
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