st: RE: combining two variables

["Andrew H. Sidman" <asidman@ic.sunysb.edu>]

Eleanor

While there is probably a faster way, I gen temporary variables and recode
the missing:

gen var1a = var1
gen var2a = var2
recode var1a var2a (. = 0)
gen newvar = var1a + var2a
drop var1a var2a

Andrew Sidman
Stony Brook University

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
[mailto:owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] On Behalf Of nora@uchicago.edu
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2007 11:19 AM
To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
Subject: st: combining two variables

Thank you to everyone who answered my last question on
creating a variable corresponding to the row number.

Now I have a question about combining the data from two
variables (in the same data set) into one variable. I want to
combine the variables in such a way that the data from one
variable can replace the missing values from the other. I have
created an example of what I am looking for below:


           Have:                   Want:
      var1       var2              newvar
        .          2                 2
        .          8                 8
        .          0                 0
        7          .                 7
        3          .                 3
        .          .                 .

Any thoughts on how to do this? 


Thanks
Eleanor Friedman 
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