"HL" ([email protected]) asked about subscripting variables
when assigning values to macros or scalars. He tried to assign
a subscripted value from a variable to a scalar and was surprised
that it appeared to assign the first value of the variable to the
scalar rather than the subscripted value. He saw this when
he later tried to display the value in the scalar. I include his
email below my signature for reference.
In fact, the correct (subscripted) value was assigned to the
scalar. The problem is that the scalar name he chose was
also valid as a minimum abbreviation of a variable name.
Variable names (even minimum abbreviations of variable names)
take precedence over scalars in expressions. For example
. sysuse auto
. scalar mpg = 1
. display mpg
22
Why did that display "22"? It is because what is being displayed
is NOT the value of the scalar 'mpg'. It is the value of the first
observation of the variable 'mpg'. Stata first checked to see
if what was in the expression after -display- was a variable name.
It was, and so that trumped the scalar that existed with the same
name. A -scalar list- will show that the scalar 'mpg' does exist
with the correct value in it:
. scalar list
mpg = 1
In HL's example, he had a variable 'year' and a variable 'unemp'.
He tried this:
. scalar y=unemp[5]
. di y
1986
He was expecting to see '6.3' which is the value of the 5th observation
of 'unemp'. However, he instead saw the first value of the variable
'year'. This happened because 'y' was the minimum unique abbreviation
for the variable 'year' in his dataset.
The following would have worked:
. scalar y=unemp[5]
. set varabbrev off
. di y
6.3
When using scalars, one should be careful that the scalars have unique
names which are not abbreviations of any variables in the dataset.
Alan
([email protected])
> To my surprise, using brackets to indicate observation
> number works with local and global macros, but not
> with the scalar command.
>
> As an example, consider the following dataset:
>
> . list
>
> +------------------------+
> | year unemp gdpgap |
> |------------------------|
> 1. | 1986 6.6 -.00888 |
> 2. | 1987 5.7 .00569 |
> 3. | 1988 5.3 .01402 |
> 4. | 1989 5.4 .01267 |
> 5. | 1990 6.3 -.01081 |
> |------------------------|
> 6. | 1991 7.3 -.02822 |
> 7. | 1992 7.4 -.01411 |
> 8. | 1993 6.5 -.01542 |
> <snip>
>
> . global yy=unemp[5]
>
> . di $yy
> 6.3000002
>
> So far so good (ignoring the problem with the float
> datatype). Now try the same with a scalar command:
>
> . scalar y=unemp[5]
>
> . di y
> 1986
>
> Here, Stata inexplicably appears to insert the upper
> left hand observation from the dataset, which happens
> to correspond to "year" rather than "unemp".
<end>
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