st: Min value of a variable and an error in for loop

[Mayank Mishra <mayankm16@gmail.com>]

Hello all,

I need to find out the minimum value observation of a variable. I
tried the following loop to obtain it:

gen temp = val[1]                                // val is the
variable whose min value i intend to find
forvalues i=2/_N {
replace temp = val[`i'] if val[`i']<`temp[1]'
}
gen minval = `temp [1]'

the message i got was invalid syntax. Please tell me the problem with
this loop. I also tried

local temp

, instead of "gen temp" in first line, but got the same result.

Also, please tell me, if there is some other more efficient method to do this.

Thanks a lot.

OM

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