st: use of local in variable name

[Eric Sommer <sommer@fifo-koeln.de>]

...
Dear Stata-Users,

I want to program a job market simulation that matches employers and 
job-searchers according to their match. Employers receive up to ten job 
offers. If they have less than 10, I would like to save the firm's 
number in the respective variable offer_`x' (x from 1 to 10).
the code looks as follows:
---
forvalues s=1/$numberofjobs {
    if free[`s'] == 1{    // is the job free

// scalar c contains the index of the employer that matches best

     if (offers[c] < 10) {

        replace offers = offers + 1 if (_n == c)
        local x offers[c]
        replace offer_`x' = `s' if (_n == c)  // Applicant c gets job 
offer number x from firm s

}
---
However, offer_`x' is not assigned correctly. I get the following error 
code:

---
variable offers_offers not found
r(111);
---

But if I inspect the content of x with "di`x'", I get 1 as return (if 
ang[c] is 1)



On the contrary, if I type this, the variable is replaced correctly.
---
local x 1
replace offer_`x' = `s' if (_n == c)
---

Apparently, Stata interprets `x' differently when using "display" or 
"replace". What am I doing wrong?
Or is there another way to replace offer_1 to offer_10 without this 
detour using locals?




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