Re: st: shifting existing values to subsequent variables in a row

[Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com>]

I'd -reshape- such data to long. Then use -by:- and subscripting.

Nick

On Sat, May 7, 2011 at 8:14 PM, Buzz Burhans <buzzb3@earthlink.net> wrote:
> I have been given a several datasets with ~50K observations and 197
> variables.
>
> Of the 197 variables, 180 are obtained from 20 measurement occasions where 9
> measurements were made. After the initial 17 variables describing the
> subject (in my case individual cows), there are a series of 9 measurements
> from  the first measurement occasion, repeated in the same order for each
> subsequent measurement occasion
>
> Inspecting the data, it is clear that in a small but substantial proportion
> of the observations/cases the last datum is not present for a given
> measurement occasion, with the consequence that the value provided for all
> the subsequent variables is shifted left by one variable. It is quite clear
> from the content of the data in the remaining variables in a  row ( a
> mixture of text and
> numbers) that the values are offset one column to the left, i.e. one
> variable to the left.
>
> I can fairly easily identify the "bad" observations with an -if- statement.
> Such observations  occur randomly and not usually consecutively.  The
> problem can occur in
> multiple subsets of the data, as it appears to have occurred with the final
> datum on different measurement occasions (but not every one, only in some
> instances), so whatever procedure I come up with will need to be reusable
> for application to data that is shifted after a later measurement occasion.
> I am trying to come up with an easy way to shift all the remaining
> values back to the correct variable.  The 9 variables on each occasion all
> have different names, though within a
> measurement occasion the prefix is the same for all 9 measurements
> (variables) attached to that occasion (i.e. day1this  day1that day1other
> day1more...)
>
> The data look something like this for 2 observations where  the first is
> ok, the second with a absent  missing value and subsequent values shifted
> right::
>
>  var1 - var25  day1No8    day1last    day2first day2second
>     day2third.....
> ___________|________|________|_______|___________|___________....
>
> Ok values....|  100              Hot               25
>  120                 UP
> Bad values..|  100              25               120
>     UP
>
> What I need is:
>
> var1 - var25  day1No8      day1last    day2first    day2second
>    day2third.....
> ___________|________|________|_______|___________|___________....
>
> Ok values....|  100              Hot               25
>     120                 UP
> shift values.|  100                .                   25
>  120                 UP
>
> I would appreciate any ideas on how to accomplish this efficiently when
> applied to multiple observations.
>

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