Re: st: maximum of a list of values

[David Kantor <dkantor@jhu.edu>]

At 11:01 AM 6/28/2005 -0700, Florence wrote:
> also, one more question:
>
> If I want to get the maximum of the first entry of a bunch of entries, 
> then is there a way to do this in shorthand? i.e. suppose I want the 
> maximum of x1[1,1], x2[1,1], x3[1,1], x4[1,1], x5[1,1], x6[1,1], x7[1,1] 
> x8[1,1], then I thought it was possible to 
> write:  max(x1[1,1],...,x8[1,1]) but this isn't giving me all of the 
> values in between.
> thanks,
> florence
> *
max(x1[1,1],...,x8[1,1])
is not a legitimate expression; I get an error message when I present it 
(in Stata 8.2).

(But max(x1[1,1],.,x8[1,1]), with only one dot, is legitimate; the dot is a 
missing value, and is ignored.)

But did you mean that expression literally, or did you mean the 
fully-written-out...
max(x1[1,1], x2[1,1], x3[1,1], x4[1,1], x5[1,1], x6[1,1], x7[1,1], x8[1,1])
?

The latter ought to work out fine.

I'm not aware of any shorthand for this, though perhaps someone else can 
suggest something.  If the problem is that you don't want an expression 
that uses a hard-coded set of matrix names, then you can set up some kind 
of loop to get your result.

HTH
-- David

David Kantor
Institute for Policy Studies
Johns Hopkins University
dkantor@jhu.edu
410-516-5404

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