Re: st: RE: help expanding the dataset by n observations

[Scott Cunningham <scunning@gmail.com>]

Nick,

I'm ordering the book after this post.  Sounds like I need it, as I  
have large gaps in the basics of Stata, combined with more  
intermediate knowledge elsewhere.  The book sounds like it'll fill  
out some of these gaps, at least.

As I was reading your post, I also wondered if it wouldn't be easier  
to use -reshape- to put the data in wideform.  For instance, say the  
data is in the form below (bottom of message).  I could create  
missing observations by first reshaping, generating the variables,  
and reshaping back.

.  egen id=group(fip year)
.  reshape wide vbl, i(id) j(year)
.  gen vblXX=.
	where XX is the missing year

And then reshape back.  Maybe there is a more efficient way to  
accomplish this, but reshape will at least allow me to expand by n  
without too many headaches.



     +-----------------------------+
     | county   fip   year   vbl |
     |-----------------------------|
  1. |      1     1   1980       0 |
  2. |      1     1   1981       0 |
  3. |      1     1   1982       0 |
  4. |      1     1   1984       0 |
  5. |      1     1   1985       0 |
     |-----------------------------|
  6. |      1     1   1987       0 |
  7. |      1     1   1988       0 |
  8. |      1     1   1991       0 |
  9. |      1     1   1992       0 |
10. |      1     1   1995       0 |
     |-----------------------------|
11. |      1     1   1996       0 |
12. |      1     1   1999       0 |
13. |      1     1   2000       0 |
14. |      3     1   1980       1 |
15. |      3     1   1981       1 |
     |-----------------------------|
16. |      3     1   1982       1 |
17. |      3     1   1984       0 |
18. |      3     1   1985       0 |
19. |      3     1   1987       0 |
20. |      3     1   1988       0 |
     |-----------------------------|
21. |      3     1   1991       0 |
22. |      3     1   1992       0 |
23. |      3     1   1995       0 |
24. |      3     1   1996       0 |
25. |      3     1   1999       0 |
     |-----------------------------|
26. |      3     1   2000       0 |
     +-----------------------------+

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