Re: st: AW: listing variables with certain characteristics

[Jeph Herrin <jeph.herrin@yale.edu>]

My esteem of Nick not withstanding, his assertion:

 "7. -ds- remains an official command. There is absolutely
  nothing unofficial about it."

is contradicted in my mind by the first line of the
help file in Stata 11:

 "ds continues to work but, as of Stata 9, is no longer an official
  part of Stata."

Now, if "official" is a dichotomous state, and StataCorp is
the ultimate arbiter of what is official and what is not, I would
have to say that Nick's "absolutely" might be unwarranted.

cheers,
Jeph



Martin Weiss wrote:
> <>
>
>
>
>
> "-ds- seems to be on the verge of extinction."
>
> See Nick`s recent statement number 7 to the contrary here:
> http://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/2009-08/msg00899.html
>
>
>
>
> HTH
> Martin
>
>
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
> [mailto:owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] Im Auftrag von Jeph Herrin
> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 27. August 2009 21:02
> An: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
> Betreff: st: listing variables with certain characteristics
>
>
> I have often found it helpful to keep track of
> metadata associated with variables by assigning
> it as characteristics. So, for instance, a variable
> which is of type checkbox, in module 6, question 3
> of a survey might have
>
>     myvar[type]:        checkbox
>     myvar[module]:      6
>     myvar[question]:    3
>
> and so on. What I'm looking for is a good way to
> generate a list of variables that have, eg, module=6.
>
> Right now, the best I can do is
>
>    ds, has(char module)
>
> to get the list of variables that have a "module"
> characteristic, then loop over that list to pick
> out the ones where module=6. This bothers me because
> (a) it seems there should be a better way than looping
> and (b) -ds- seems to be on the verge of extinction.
>
> I'm about to write  my own utility to do this, since
> I need to do it so often, but thought I'd see if there
> wasn't a better way already out there. Is there a
> a direct way to get a list of variables where the
> characteristic exists and has a certain value?
>
> thanks,
> Jeph
>
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