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Re: st: _N in by-groups
From
Matthew White <[email protected]>
To
[email protected]
Subject
Re: st: _N in by-groups
Date
Fri, 19 Aug 2011 11:20:39 +0300
Sorry, I think I'm still confused... Let's say I don't want dispby to
display just the number of observations in the by-group (which your
program does) but anything (including _N). So
sysuse auto
bys foreign: dispby "Hello world"
should display "Hello world" for each group, and
sysuse auto
bys foreign: dispby _N
should display 52 then 22.
Something like this could work:
program dispby, byable(recall)
if _by() {
marksample touse
preserve
qui keep if `touse'
}
disp `0'
if _by() restore
end
The two examples above work. But I can't imagine this being the best
way, especially with large data sets...
Thanks,
Matt
On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 11:02 AM, Phil Clayton
<[email protected]> wrote:
> . program dispby, byable(recall)
> 1. marksample touse
> 2. count if `touse'
> 3. end
>
> . bys foreign: dispby
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -> foreign = Domestic
> 52
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -> foreign = Foreign
> 22
>
> This is documented in [P] byable
>
> Phil
>
> On 19/08/2011, at 5:41 PM, Matthew White wrote:
>
>> So if I execute:
>> sysuse auto
>> bys foreign: drop if _n == _N
>> Then two observations are dropped because _N is the number of
>> observations in the by-group.
>>
>> But in this (admittedly silly) example, _N seems to be the number of
>> observations in the data set:
>> program dispby, byable(recall)
>> disp `0'
>> end
>> sysuse auto
>> bys foreign: dispby _N
>> Both times 74 is displayed, instead of 52 in the first by-group and 22
>> in the second.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Matt
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 10:07 AM, Maarten Buis <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 2:21 AM, Matthew White wrote:
>>>> If a Stata command has by-groups, it seems like _N is interpreted
>>>> sometimes as the number of observations in the by-group and sometimes
>>>> as the number of observations in the data set.
>>>
>>> If you use the -by :- prefix it is always defined as the number of
>>> observations within each by-group. Stata would be a pretty lousy
>>> program if such a scalar randomly changed meaning...
>>>
>>> If you want the total number of observations than I would just do:
>>>
>>> local Ntot = _N
>>>
>>> or inside a program that previously used -marksample-:
>>>
>>> count if `touse'
>>> local Ntot = r(N)
>>>
>>> later you do
>>>
>>> by <somevar> `touse' : <something using _N and `Ntot'> if `touse'
>>>
>>> Hope this helps,
>>> Maarten
>>>
>>> --------------------------
>>> Maarten L. Buis
>>> Institut fuer Soziologie
>>> Universitaet Tuebingen
>>> Wilhelmstrasse 36
>>> 72074 Tuebingen
>>> Germany
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.maartenbuis.nl
>>> --------------------------
>>> *
>>> * For searches and help try:
>>> * http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
>>> * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
>>> * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Matthew White
>> Evaluation Coordinator
>> Urban Micro-Insurance Project
>> Innovations for Poverty Action
>>
>> +254 (0)701 025 276
>> [email protected]
>>
>> *
>> * For searches and help try:
>> * http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
>> * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
>> * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
>
>
> *
> * For searches and help try:
> * http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
> * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
> * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
>
--
Matthew White
Evaluation Coordinator
Urban Micro-Insurance Project
Innovations for Poverty Action
+254 (0)701 025 276
[email protected]
*
* For searches and help try:
* http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
* http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/