Thanks to Jeph Herrin, Nick Cox and Kit Baum for replying.
I was aware of the -egen , fill()- pattern syntax, but got into the habit of
spelling the full sequence out over the past couple of years, after having
trouble getting the twice-through-the-pattern to work properly a while back.
In the current case, I ended up using -generate byte group = sum(mod(_n, 4)
== 1)-, but Jeph's -ceil()- looks faster and is certainly more elegant.
In any event, as Kit mentions, the command's usage could be better
documented in the online help file. Perhaps a couple of examples of
achieving the task might be given at the bottom of the help file, one
with -egen , fill()- and the other with -egen , seq() block()- that Nick
mentioned as an alterative.
Joseph Coveney
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