st: egen and spontaneously changing numbers

[Matt Rutledge <rutledma@umich.edu>]

Hi,

Using Stata 10, I'm attempting to assign one person's identifier  
(DUPERSID from the MEPS dataset) to every person in the sample,  
repeating for each of the N people in my sample.  The code I'm using  
seems to work, except that it spontaneously changes one digit of the  
identifier.

To illustrate, I've created this dummy dataset:
dupersid	date	x
40002015	19990101	1
40002015	19990201	0
40002015	19990301	0
40010010	19990101	0
40010010	19990201	1
40010010	19990301	1
41011144	19990101	1
41011144	19990201	0
41011144	19990301	1
and called it test.txt.

I then read in this dataset, and attempt to assign each observation  
the dupersid 40002015.  In turn, I'll also want to assign all of them  
the identifier 40010010, and finally 41011144.  So I do a forvalues  
loop:

set more off
insheet using test.txt, names
tostring dupersid, replace
rename dupersid dupersidsave
bysort dupersidsave: gen first = 1 if _n==1
replace first = 0 if first==.
summ first
local N = r(N)*r(mean)
forvalues j = 1/`N' {
	preserve
	gsort -first dupersidsave
	gen dupers = dupersidsave if _n==`j' & first==1
	destring dupers, replace
	egen dupersid = max(dupers)
	tostring dupersid, replace
	gsort dupersidsave -first
	list dupers*
	des
	restore
	}

****
Here's the output.  Please note that on the first pass through the  
loop, the identifier changes from 40002015 to 40002016.  On the second  
pass, the identifier changes from 40010010 to 40010008.  The third  
pass is fine.  Any ideas why this might be?  Using "egen, total" or  
"egen, mean" doesn't seem to help, nor does destringing the identifier  
at different points along the way.  Also, I get the same error running  
it without a loop (replace `j' with 1, for instance, and the  
identifier still spontaneously changes).

(8 real changes made, 8 to missing)
dupers already numeric; no replace
dupersid was float now str8

     +--------------------------------+
     | dupers~e     dupers   dupersid |
     |--------------------------------|
  1. | 40002015   4.00e+07   40002016 |
  2. | 40002015          .   40002016 |
  3. | 40002015          .   40002016 |
  4. | 40010010          .   40002016 |
  5. | 40010010          .   40002016 |
     |--------------------------------|
  6. | 40010010          .   40002016 |
  7. | 41011144          .   40002016 |
  8. | 41011144          .   40002016 |
  9. | 41011144          .   40002016 |
     +--------------------------------+

Contains data
  obs:             9
 vars:             6
 size:           261 (99.9% of memory free)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
              storage  display     value
variable name   type   format      label      variable label
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
dupersidsave    long   %12.0g
date            long   %12.0g
x               byte   %8.0g
first           float  %9.0g
dupers          float  %9.0g
dupersid        str8   %9s
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorted by:  dupersidsave
     Note:  dataset has changed since last saved
(8 real changes made, 8 to missing)
dupers already numeric; no replace
dupersid was float now str8

     +--------------------------------+
     | dupers~e     dupers   dupersid |
     |--------------------------------|
  1. | 40002015          .   40010008 |
  2. | 40002015          .   40010008 |
  3. | 40002015          .   40010008 |
  4. | 40010010   4.00e+07   40010008 |
  5. | 40010010          .   40010008 |
     |--------------------------------|
  6. | 40010010          .   40010008 |
  7. | 41011144          .   40010008 |
  8. | 41011144          .   40010008 |
  9. | 41011144          .   40010008 |
     +--------------------------------+

Contains data
  obs:             9
 vars:             6
 size:           261 (99.9% of memory free)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
              storage  display     value
variable name   type   format      label      variable label
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
dupersidsave    long   %12.0g
date            long   %12.0g
x               byte   %8.0g
first           float  %9.0g
dupers          float  %9.0g
dupersid        str8   %9s
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorted by:  dupersidsave
     Note:  dataset has changed since last saved
(8 real changes made, 8 to missing)
dupers already numeric; no replace
dupersid was float now str8

     +--------------------------------+
     | dupers~e     dupers   dupersid |
     |--------------------------------|
  1. | 40002015          .   41011144 |
  2. | 40002015          .   41011144 |
  3. | 40002015          .   41011144 |
  4. | 40010010          .   41011144 |
  5. | 40010010          .   41011144 |
     |--------------------------------|
  6. | 40010010          .   41011144 |
  7. | 41011144   4.10e+07   41011144 |
  8. | 41011144          .   41011144 |
  9. | 41011144          .   41011144 |
     +--------------------------------+

Contains data
  obs:             9
 vars:             6
 size:           261 (99.9% of memory free)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
              storage  display     value
variable name   type   format      label      variable label
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
dupersidsave    long   %12.0g
date            long   %12.0g
x               byte   %8.0g
first           float  %9.0g
dupers          float  %9.0g
dupersid        str8   %9s
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorted by:  dupersidsave
     Note:  dataset has changed since last saved

*****
Thanks,
Matt
rutledma@umich.edu

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