Great. Thanks for making that clear.
___________________________________________
Jennifer Nicoll Victor
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science
University of Pittsburgh
4600 Wesley W. Posvar Hall
(412) 624-7204
E-mail: [email protected]
Homepage: http://www.pitt.edu/~jnvictor
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Nick Cox
Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2008 3:28 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: st: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: copy values
Not so. There is absolutely no need to loop.
I am not completely sure of the best -sort- order but some variant on
this
bysort time state (district) : ///
replace `var' = `var'[_n-1] if missing(`var')
will be fine.
The point is explicit in the FAQ. The general idea is that
bysort <avars> (<bvars>) :
gives you the complete control you need. Stata is looping internally, as
it always does, but you need not do that yourself.
Nick
[email protected]
Victor, Jennifer Nicoll
Good idea. However, I think your first idea is preferable because the
second idea forces me to loop over time (I cannot sort by state without
corrupting the time element). It seems your first suggestions maintains
simplicity which still ensuring a check.
I used:
replace `var' = `var'[_n-1] if `var' >= . & state==state[_n-1]
with a foreach command.
Nick Cox
That's good to hear, but such code risks copying across states, which I
guess you do not want.
Adding
... if state == state[_n-1]
is one way to ensure that, given sensible sort order. Doing things -by
state- is an even better way.
Nick
[email protected]
Victor, Jennifer Nicoll
Thanks. The following command worked perfectly. Sorry I didn't look
for it in the FAQs.
replace blackstate = blackstate[_n-1] if blackstate >= .
Nick Cox
This is an FAQ.
FAQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Replacing missing
values
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N.
J. Cox
2/03 How can I replace missing values with previous or
following nonmissing values?
http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/data/missing.html
-- apart from the twist about -drop-ping values which is standard stuff.
Victor, Jennifer Nicoll
I have a time series panel that has missing values. I want to copy,
duplicate, replace, or otherwise fill-in values in one variable with
other values in that variable.
For example, suppose I have variables time, state, district,
blackpopdist (black population in that district) and blackpopstate
(black population in that state. My unit of analysis is district, so
states are listed as district=0. I have blackpopdist for each
district>0, but missing for district==0. I have blackpopstate for each
district==0, but missing otherwise. I want to ultimately delete the
observations where district =0. Before I do so, I want my blackpopstate
variable to take on constant values for that state, for how ever many
districts are in it. Therefore, for each year-state, I want to
duplicate the first value in blackpopstate to fillin the other missing
value for the rest of the districts in that year-state. Then drop the
district=0 observation.
A sample starting dataset:
Time state dist blackpopdist blackpopstate
92 AL 0 . 1234
92 AL 1 234 .
92 AL 2 456 .
92 CA 0 . 4567
92 CA 1 2345 .
92 CA 2 12 .
93 AL 0 . 1235
93 AL 1 235 .
A sample complete dataset:
Time state dist blackpopdist blackpopstate
92 AL 1 234 1234
92 AL 2 456 1234
92 CA 1 2345 4567
92 CA 2 12 4567
93 AL 1 235 1235
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