Re: st: How to display 10 digits data in data panel

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

At 06:00 PM 9/3/2005, mzhang@nd.edu wrote:
> for example:
>
> set obs 1
> gen vindex=2158
> gen number=5746340000+2158
>
> by stata default, not all the digits of "number" show up in the data panel.
> therefore i use the syntax
>
> format number %13.0g
>
> to display all the digits. however, the result comes out weird. it 
> is 5746342400
> instead of 5746342158. why??????
See -help data_types-

"floats have about 7 digits of accuracy; the magnitude of the number 
does not matter.  Thus, 1234567 can be stored perfectly as a float, 
as can 1234567e+20.  The number 123456789, however, would be rounded 
to 123456792.  In general,     this rounding does not matter.

"If you are storing identification numbers, the rounding could 
matter.  If the identification numbers are integers and take 9 digits 
or less, store them as longs; otherwise, store them as 
doubles.  doubles have 16 digits of accuracy."

So in your case:

set obs 1
gen vindex=2158
gen double number=5746340000+2158




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Richard Williams, Notre Dame Dept of Sociology
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