st: Missing values in logical expressions in Mata

["Jann Ben" <ben.jann@soz.gess.ethz.ch>]

Hi, I am very much confused by how Mata treats missing 
values in logical expression. Long time ago, I learned 
that "." used in logical expressions evaluates to TRUE 
in Stata. However, look at this:

	. mata
	: if (.) 1
	> else 2
	  1
	
	: if (!.) 1
	> else 2
	  1
	
	: end

This behavior does not make sense to me. Furthermore,
it is in contrast to -help m2_op_logical-: "!a, when 
a is a scalar, evaluates to 1 if a is not equal to 
zero and 1 otherwise." Clearly, "." is not zero.

Note, that in Stata code, the expression evaluates as 
expected:

	. if . di 1
	1
	
	. else di 2
	
	. if !. di 1
	
	. else di 2
	2

What could be the reason for this inconsitency?

ben

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