Nick,
Thanks for the reply. Trust me, I'm not looking for trouble (especially
with a July1 deadline) but here's what has transpired:
My dataset is large so I created the cleaning do file. I cleaned my
large dataset using the do file it and saved the observations and
variables I needed as a new dta file. (To avoid having to wait for the
large do file to run each time I start working) While working with the
new cleaned/saved dataset I realized I'd forgotten a variable and went
back to get it. I ran the old do file and saw that the number of final
observations was different. So I ran it again, and again...and got the
different outputs each time.
The files haven't changed/been updated by a 3rd party. They're all
saved on my hard drive.
JSM
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of n j cox
Sent: Monday, May 28, 2007 10:31
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: st: changing number of observations
Not really, especially on this little information.
Presumably all files have been exactly the same throughout.
Are you sure that no third party is intermittently updating
the files?
Why are you repeating what you imply should be exactly the same
operation? There may be some clue in the answer to that.
Nick
[email protected]
Jesse Moore MD
==============
I have a large do file that I've created to clean a dataset. It
includes some merging as well as forvalues commands. The first line of
code is use "filepath", clear
I've run it five times now and each time there has been a different
number of observations at the end (n=7639, 7637, 7645, 7629, and 7641)
It seems that if the do file starts with the same file and does the same
thing every time it should be returning the same observations every
time. Any ideas on what is happening here?
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