st: Re: filling in gaps

["Michael Blasnik" <michael.blasnik@verizon.net>]

replace ID=ID[_n-1] if ID==.

Michael Blasnik
michael.blasnik@verizon.net
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Christopher Berry" <crberry@uchicago.edu>
To: <statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2005 12:55 PM
Subject: st: filling in gaps



> I'd like to know if anyone can suggest a solution to the following 
> problem.  I have a data set with multiple observations on federal 
> programs.  However, the program ID is only given for the first 
> observation of a program, and then is blank.  The file looks like this:
>
> ID            VAR1
> 10.001     1973
>                1813
>                1654
> 10.002     5623
>                4158
> 10.003     6639  
> ....
> I would like to fill in the gaps in the program IDs.  In this case, rows 
> 2 and 3 should be set 10.001, and row 5 should be set to 10.002.  I 
> should note that I have about 12000 rows of data.  Program IDs are not 
> necessarily sequential.  There is not always a gap between program IDs; 
> that is, a program may have only one row of data.  Can anyone suggest a 
> solution to this problem?   I haven't found anything by searching the 
> archives, although I confess that I'm not sure what the right search 
> terms might be.  Thanks.
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