Re: st: limitations of "generate" with missing data

[Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com>]

The underlying problem can be illustrated by sorting. Suppose we
-sort- a variable, which contains missings, in numeric order. Where do
the missings go? We need a decision: either missing is regarded as
larger than any non-missing, or smaller than any non-missing. Stata
made the first decision.

Any way, here are some solutions:

gen myvar1 =  (gread_comp_score_pcnt>.79) if gread_comp_pcnt < .

gen myvar2 =  (gread_comp_score_pcnt>.79) if !missing(gread_comp_pcnt)

gen myvar3 = cond(missing(gread_comp_pcnt), ., (gread_comp_score_pcnt > .79)

gen myvar4 = (gread_comp_score_pcnt > .79) / (!missing(gread_comp_pcnt))

(5. don't throw away information by turning a measure into an indicator!)

Nick

On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 11:01 PM, Michael Costello
<michaelavcostello@gmail.com> wrote:
> Statalisters,
>
> I recently ran into a problem with the following dataset:
>
> . tab  gread_comp_score_pcnt, m
> gread_comp_ |
>  score_pcnt |      Freq.     Percent        Cum.
> ------------+-----------------------------------
>          0 |        150        7.50        7.50
>         .2 |         85        4.25       11.75
>         .4 |         97        4.85       16.60
>         .6 |         82        4.10       20.70
>         .8 |         72        3.60       24.30
>          1 |         15        0.75       25.05
>          . |      1,499       74.95      100.00
> ------------+-----------------------------------
>      Total |      2,000      100.00
>
> The high number of "missing" is by design, a by-product of a
> horizontally structured dataset that I have yet to rectify.
>
> When I run the command:
> gen gread_comp_score_pcnt80= (gread_comp_score_pcnt>.79)
> I am left with
>
> . tab  gread_comp_score_pcnt80, m
> gread_comp_ |
> score_pcnt8 |
>          0 |      Freq.     Percent        Cum.
> ------------+-----------------------------------
>          0 |        414       20.70       20.70
>          1 |      1,586       79.30      100.00
> ------------+-----------------------------------
>      Total |      2,000      100.00
>
> As you can see, the 87 values above .79 were set to 1, but so were all
> the missing values!!  I have toyed with the code a bit, trying
> variations such as
> . gen gread_comp_score_pcnt80= (gread_comp_score_pcnt>.79 &
> gread_comp_score_pcnt!=.)
> but that converts all the missing to 0's, which is only marginally better.
>
> So the question is, is there some way to use a single, precise line of
> code to create eighty-seven 1's, four hundred fourteen  0's and 1499
> Missing values in one dummy variable?  I know I can do it with several
> lines of code, but I'm looking for something more concise, as it needs
> to run many hundreds of times.
>

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