st: RE: RE: generating a variable?

["Sarah Edgington" <sedging@ucla.edu>]

.
Your example code, in addition to being nonsense in terms of syntax, also
uses illegal variable names.  Moreover, the name and number of variables
differs from what you describe having in the data.  My suggested solution
ignores your example code and is based solely on your description of the
data.  If your description doesn't accurately reflect what you're working
with then my suggestion may not help much.  

Here's one way to get the four year total:

gen
total_4_year=(E01==3)+(E02==3)+(E03==3)+(E04==3)+(E05==3)+(E06==3)+(E07==3)+
(E08==3)+(E09==3)+(E10==3)+(E11==3)+(E12==3)


-Sarah

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
[mailto:owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] On Behalf Of Nick Cox
Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2011 12:24 PM
To: 'statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu'
Subject: st: RE: generating a variable?

I am very surprised that you imply that this even works at all. "then" is
just fantasy code so far as Stata is concerned. Alternatively, if this is a
mix of Stata and pseudocode, then please show us the real Stata code. 

See also 

FAQ     . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  if command vs. if
qualifier
        . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  J.
Wernow
        6/00    I have an if or while command in my program that
                only seems to evaluate the first observation,
                what's going on?
                http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/lang/ifqualifier.html

to learn that -if- as you (intend to) use it is not what you want. 

Nick
n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk 

Ignacio,  Martinez

I'm having troubles generating 2 new variables with my data.

I have the following variables: ID; E01-E12 where E01 =3 indicates that i is
enrolled in a 4 year college in January, and E05=2 means that he is enrolled
in a 2 year college in may.

I want to generate a 2 new variables Total_2_year that is the total number
of month that i is enrolled in a 2 year college and total_4_year that is the
total number of month that i is enrolled in a
4 year college.

What is the best way of doing this?

My first attempt was this
<code>
*Generates vectors of total months enrolled in college gen total_2_year = 0
gen total_4_year = 0 gen total_none = 0


forvalues month=1/9 {
		if 511200`month'==3 then total_4_year==total_4_year+1
		if 511200`month'==2 then total_2_year==total_2_year+1
		if 511200`month'==1 then total_none==total_none+1
		if 511200`month'==-4 then total_none==-4		
		if 511200`month'==-4 then total_2_year==-4
		if 511200`month'==-4 then total_4_year==-4

	}

</code>

but i get only zeros... :_(


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