st: RE: RE: Replace missing values by 0

["David Radwin" <dradwin@mprinc.com>]

Tony,

Sometimes data, especially count data, are stored in a spreadsheet where a
blank cell indicates a zero value. For example, if the data are
hand-entered and there are a lot of zero values, it is more efficient not
to enter a zero, and many spreadsheet functions treat the blank cell as a
zero value.

However, if you paste or -insheet- these data into Stata, the blank cells
are encoded as missing values. In this case it is necessary to convert the
missing values to zeroes.

David

--
David Radwin
Research Associate
MPR Associates, Inc.
2150 Shattuck Ave., Suite 800
Berkeley, CA 94704
Phone: 510-849-4942
Fax: 510-849-0794

www.mprinc.com


> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu [mailto:owner-
> statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] On Behalf Of Lachenbruch, Peter
> Sent: Monday, August 09, 2010 2:59 PM
> To: 'statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu'
> Subject: st: RE: Replace missing values by 0
> 
> In all of the discussion of this query, nobody has asked why it is
> important to do this?  If you are computing means, the 0 values will
> distort the mean (or median if enough), and if you simply want to ignore
> zeros with "if x~=0") retaining the missing value will do this
> automatically.
> 
> I am unsure if I've ever had a reason to convert missing values to a
> numeric value, but have had many times when the -9 for missing (or
> whatever) had to be set to "."
> 
> Tony
> 
> Peter A. Lachenbruch
> Department of Public Health
> Oregon State University
> Corvallis, OR 97330
> Phone: 541-737-3832
> FAX: 541-737-4001
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu [mailto:owner-
> statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] On Behalf Of Hobst
> Sent: Monday, August 09, 2010 1:55 AM
> To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
> Subject: st: Replace missing values by 0
> 
> I have two variabled called "prean" and "pa_kum" that contain missing
> values.
> These missing values i would like to replace by 0 (zero). What command
can
> i
> use to do this?
> 
> Thanks in advance for your support. Regards
> --
> View this message in context:
> http://statalist.1588530.n2.nabble.com/Replace-missing-values-by-0-
> tp5388239p5388239.html
> Sent from the Statalist mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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