I can't reproduce this. The key is, or should be,
the condition
_n == 1
to restrict changes to the first record.
I did this to get a toy example:
set obs 100
egen id = seq() , to(10)
egen time = seq(), block(10)
drop if inlist(id,3,5) & time > 1
tab id
bysort id (time) : gen multiple = _N > 1
egen ID = group(id) if multiple
tab ID
gen somevar = uniform()
bysort ID (time) : replace somevar = . if _n == 1 & mod(ID,5) == 0
l
and this works for me.
Nick
[email protected]
[email protected]
>
> Thanks for the help on this but the procedure does not quite
> do it. Or,
> more precisely, it overdoes it. That is, instead of replacing with a
> missing value only the entry time for the first record for
> every fifth
> multiple-record case, it replaces all entry times with
> missing values for
> all records in every fifth multiple-record case. I am aiming
> to replace
> only the first entry time value in the first record for every fifth
> multiple-record case.
>
> --On Thursday, November 04, 2004 1:45 AM +0000 Nick Cox
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Correct. I guess the -egen- should just select those cases.
> >
> > . bysort whateverisyourid : gen multiple = _N > 1
> > . egen id = group(whateverisyourid) if multiple
> > . bysort id (entrytime):
> > replace somevar = . if _n == 1 & mod(id,5) == 0
> >
Keith Dear
> >> But celdjt said he wanted to do this for every fifth
> >> *multiple-record*
> >> case. He could first drop the single-record cases, apply
> >> Nick's code, then
> >> append them back. Or is there a neater way?
> >> kd
> >>
> >> > Suppose your identifiers run 1, 2, ... . If this isn't true,
> >> >
> >> > . egen id = group(whateverisyourid)
> >> >
> >> > will make it so.
> >> >
> >> > Now, if I understand you correctly, you want to
> >> >
> >> > . bysort id (entrytime):
> >> > replace somevar = . if _n == 1 & mod(id,5) == 0
>> > [email protected]
> >> >
> >> > > My
> >> > > question is about making an adjustment to the surrogate
> >> data set. The
> >> > > surrogate data set contains about 3500 cases, some of which
> >> > > have just one
> >> > > record per case, and others have multiple records. Each
> >> record has a
> >> > > variable recording an entering time and an exit time for
> >> that record.
> >> > > Hence, single record cases have one entry time and one exit
> >> > > time; multiple
> >> > > record cases have multiple entry and multiple exit times. I
> >> > > would like to
> >> > > convert the first entry time for every fifth multiple-record
> >> > > case in this
> >> > > data set into a missing value. Are there any suggestions for
> >> > > how this might be done.
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