Re: st: Identify Categorical/Dichotomous and Continuous Variables

["Martin Weiss" <martin.weiss1@gmx.de>]

Also, note that the distinction would not be easily achieved (how does SPSS 
go about this business?): Take the auto data,

sysuse auto, clear
ta rep78
ta foreign

Usually, people use the rep78 variable as an example for categorical data, 
whereas the foreign var acts as an example of a dichotomous variable. But 
what about mpg or price?

codebook mpg price

shows you that they take on 74 and 21 unique values, respectively. So we 
would probably say that price is continuous? How about mpg? 21 distinct 
values in 74 observations? Classification as you report from SPSS does not 
absolve you of the ground work of thinking about the nature of the variable 
in question...




HTH
Martin
_______________________
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Svend Juul" <SJ@SOCI.AU.DK>
To: <statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu>
Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2008 3:44 PM
Subject: Re: st: Identify Categorical/Dichotomous and Continuous Variables



> Frank wrote:
>
> I am new to Stata: moved from SPSS a week ago. I am hoping
> that someone can help me with what I imagine is a simple
> issue. I saved an SPSS file as a Stata one. I am working
> my way through the user guide and the data management
> manual, but I am having difficulty with confirming whether
> Stata recognizes variables as continuous (or scale) or
> categorical/dichotomous (or nominal). In SPSS, you can
> easily identify whether the type of measure is a scale,
> nominal, or string with its drop down menu in the variable
> view. It would be a great help, and I would appreciate it
> very much if someone would tell me the method to confirm
> the data type for categorical/dichotomous and for
> continuous variables? Thank you.
>
> ======================================================
>
> As Martin responded: Stata has no formal distinction between
> continuous and categorical numeric variables. However, the
> command
>
>    codebook, compact
>
> may tell you what you want. The -Unique- column tells you
> how many "unique" (meaning different) values each variable
> has.
>
> Hope this helps
> Svend
>
> ________________________________________________________
>
> Svend Juul
> Institut for Folkesundhed, Afdeling for Epidemiologi
> (Institute of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology)
> Vennelyst Boulevard 6
> DK-8000 Aarhus C,  Denmark
> Phone, work:   +45 8942 6090
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> E-mail:        sj@soci.au.dk
> _________________________________________________________
>
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