st: AW: RE: AW: RE: RE: reshape command ---listing all the variables changing over time?

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

<> 

" I can't see where that's promised or implied."




Amanda`s post did keep me busy last night due to this slight inconsistency
in the help file. If you let Stata 

*************
reshape wide x, i(id) j(j)
*************

in my example, it complains:

x ambiguous abbreviation
r(111);


So that points to the expansion of a -varlist-, as in

***
clear
foreach var of newlist x1-x5{
	gen `var'=2
}
unab mylocal: x
***


All of which the help file does not make clear. Still, the variable names
thus passed to Stata are actually used as "stubs" for the wide form dataset:



. reshape wide x1-x5, i(id) j(j)
(note: j = 1 2 3)

Data                               long   ->   wide
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
Number of obs.                      300   ->     100
Number of variables                  12   ->      21
j variable (3 values)                 j   ->   (dropped)
xij variables:
                                     x1   ->   x11 x12 x13
                                     x2   ->   x21 x22 x23
                                     x3   ->   x31 x32 x33
                                     x4   ->   x41 x42 x43
                                     x5   ->   x51 x52 x53
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-


HTH
Martin


-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
[mailto:owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] Im Auftrag von Nick Cox
Gesendet: Freitag, 14. Mai 2010 13:15
An: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
Betreff: st: RE: AW: RE: RE: reshape command ---listing all the variables
changing over time?

Good point. 

I was replying directly to Amanda. But in your example and hers, I expected
the stubs   to be -x-. Bu in fact they are not. 

It's interesting that -reshape- in parsing a list of stubs will expand a
varlist. I can't see where that's promised or implied. I certainly hadn't
appreciated it before. 
 
Nick 
n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk 

Martin Weiss

" In addition, your -reshape- example is puzzling."


Actually, this was the _one_ aspect that I did not find strange about this
post. Which aspect of thie following example do you find puzzling?


*************
clear*
set obs 100
 
gen byte id=_n
expand 3
bys id: gen byte j=_n

foreach var of newlist x1-x5{
	//time varying vars
		gen `var'=rnormal()
}

foreach var of newlist y1-y5{
		//constant vars
		gen `var'=5
}

reshape wide x1-x5, i(id) j(j)

*************



HTH
Martin

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
[mailto:owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] Im Auftrag von Nick Cox
Gesendet: Freitag, 14. Mai 2010 12:57
An: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
Betreff: st: RE: RE: reshape command ---listing all the variables changing
over time?

In addition, your -reshape- example is puzzling. -reshape- expects
stubs, not variable names. 

Nick 
n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk 

Nick Cox

In addition to other replies

findname, all(@ == @[1]) 

finds all variables which are constant; adding its -not- option finds
the complement. You can specify a varlist too to separate constant and
changing variables. The syntax catches numeric and string variables
alike. 

-findname- is a user-written program from SSC. 

Amanda Fu

I was wondering if anyone could help me with a problem I met when
using --reshape--command.

When I tried to reshape a data set from long version to wide version,
I find I  need to list all the variables that are not constant in the
--reshape--command. Suppose the data set has 1500 variables changing
over time and 100 constant variables.
------------------------------------------------------------
. reshape wide x1-x1500, i(id) j(wave)
------------------------------------------------------------
If I miss any of the variables changing over time, the reshape command
will give error message such as "variable XXXX not constant " and will
stop working.  But it is so frustrating to separate the constant
variables and not-constant variables and list all of the latter ones
in the reshape command.

What I used to do is just to drop all the unnecessary variables from
the data set before reshape to reduce the work load here.

May I know if there is any more efficient way to deal with this problem?


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