st: Re: Storing output from a loop in only one variable

[Dani Tilley <tilleydani@yahoo.com>]

Hi Eric,

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, this doesn't give me what I'm looking for. 
With the correction you pointed below, I get an x variable that only has the 
output from the first loop on ALL its entries. I'm rather looking for a variable 
that has -a- entries (the output from each loop on each line) and -N-a- missing 
values. 


Incidentally, could anyone tell me why I'm getting this error:

gen x=.
gen int t=2
replace x=123 in t
't' invalid obs no
r(198);

what is a valid obs no apart from actual integers plugged in? If I can figure 
out a way to generate a variable that would not trigger this error, I can then 
replace var=var+i and solve the problem I have.

Thanks,
Dani






----- Original Message ----

<>

Sorry, that should be "x", not "`x'" in the line:


> replace x = `a' if !mi(`a') & mi(`x')


~ Eric

From: Dani Tilley <tilleydani@yahoo.com>
To: stata <statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu>
Sent: Thu, July 8, 2010 11:32:19 AM
Subject: Storing output from a loop in only one variable

Hi,

I'm trying to store certain output in a new variable while I loop through 
different categories. At the end I want to average what I've stored and perhaps 
do some other manipulations. Right now, my code looks like this:

foreach a in {range} {
...
gen x`a'={output} in 1
...
}

su x*, mean
di r(mean)
drop x*

So I create `a' variables that have the desired output as their 1st observations 

and N-1 missing points. I then average across these variables and drop them. 
While this gets the job done, I feel it's very clumsy. I'm looking to create a 
single variable, x, that will hold all `a' outputs. Something like

scalar i=1
foreach a in {range} {
...
gen x={output} in i
i++ //or i=i+1
}

Thanks,
DF Tilley


      
*
*   For searches and help try:
*   http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
*   http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
*   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/