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RE: st: -replace- does not create an exact copy


From   "Nick Cox" <[email protected]>
To   <[email protected]>
Subject   RE: st: -replace- does not create an exact copy
Date   Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:53:43 -0000

In addition, it should be clearly understood that -format- affects only the way numbers are displayed. It has absolutely no affect on their underlying values or how they are stored. 

Nick 
[email protected] 

Maarten buis

That is a precision issue, a computer can't store that number 
exactly (think of storing 1/3 in decimal: 0.3333 etc.). There
are a couple of things you can do: replace to 583 rather than 
58.3, as computers can store integers exactly, or use 
- ... if var1==float(58.3)-.

--- On Mon, 26/10/09, Michael McCulloch wrote:
> For some reason, the following command:
> bysort var1 : replace var1 = cond(_n == 1, x, y)
> 
> replaces the variable var1 with a number not *exactly*
> identical, such as:
>     58.29999924 instead of 58.3.
> 
> Although I could say:
>     . format %9.2f,
> 
> that won't find a match for -if-, as in:
>     . ...  if var1==58.3


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