Re: st: recode stata like?

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

At 12:29 PM 11/9/2005, lars@climweb.de wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I don't think it's Stata-like to replace an existing value without 
> an explicit command. "recode" does that by default see:
>
> . sysuse auto
> (1978 Automobile Data)
>
> . recode weight (1/1999 = 1) (1999/.=2)
> (weight: 74 changes made)
>
> I don't think this is a good idea, because it is often used by stata 
> novices. I would suggest to change that.
I'm not sure what you mean.  -recode- is an explicit command, as is 
-replace-.  I suppose you could change -recode- to include a 
-replace- option.  But at some point you just have to trust users to 
know what they are doing.  If anything, I feel like Stata protects me 
a little too much sometimes, e.g. if I ruled the world there might 
just be a -gen- command, not -gen- and -replace-.


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Richard Williams, Notre Dame Dept of Sociology
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