RE: st: Y standardization in ologit regressions with -mi-

["Daniel Escher" <descher@nd.edu>]

Very good to know. I have been using Stata for about 18 months and need to begin learning "advanced" techniques (i.e., loops and macros), so this is a good start. 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu [mailto:owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] On Behalf Of Maarten buis
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2010 11:24 AM
To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
Subject: RE: st: Y standardization in ologit regressions with -mi-

--- On Tue, 7/12/10, Maarten buis wrote:
> I am guessing that you ran my example line by line. This example 
> contains local macros (in this case a name for a scalar created by 
> -tempname-), and these cease to exist at the end of a session.

Just to give you a bit more background. The key part of the code that gives you trouble is:

tempname sd_y
scalar `sd_y' = 0

I could instead have writen:

scalar sd_y = 0

There are two reasons why I did not do it:

1) The real reason is that it is my habit. I write programs in Stata. I do not want my programs to overwrite stuff that is in the users data (they would _not_ be happy if it did), and I do not want my programs to leave unnecesary clutter behind once it is finished. -tempname- and -tempvar- are very useful tools for achieving those aims. It is so useful that I use it all the time without even thinking about it.

2) the smart reason is that scalars and variables share the same namespace, and that variables take precedence, even abreviated variable names. Say you have a scalar names "a" 
and a variable named "apple". If you typed -di a- you will get the value of the first observation of the variable apple rather than the content of the scalar a. You could type -di scalar(a)- but that is more typing. The trick with
-tempname- avoids this problem, it creates a unique name for my scalar that will not clash with any variable names.

Hope this helps,
Maarten

--------------------------
Maarten L. Buis
Institut fuer Soziologie
Universitaet Tuebingen
Wilhelmstrasse 36
72074 Tuebingen
Germany

http://www.maartenbuis.nl
--------------------------


      

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