st: RE: Returning Labels based on values.

[Nick Cox <n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk>]

Yes. See -help macro- and -help extended_fcn-. These are undoubtedly key places for programmers. There are pointers in [U] and [P], so you didn't look in the right places. 

foreach v of numlist 1/4 {
	local label : label (SEASON) `v' 

     ... if SEASON == `v', subtitle("`label'") 

}

Note that there is no need to check whether the label has been defined:

sysuse auto
local label : label (mpg) 42

In this case, there is no label, but the macro just contains the value. However, your variable must be numeric. 

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

Cook, Daniel E

For programming purposes, I'm wondering if there is a way to return the a label based on the value used to specify it.

For example, consider a data set with the following values and labels for the variable SEASON:

1 Winter
2 Spring
3 Summer
4 Fall

Now suppose I have a do file and I want to create a graph for the mean temperature of each season...so I write something like this:

foreach v of numlist 1/4 {

...create a graph if SEASON == `v'... of avg. temp.

}

Now - I want to label each graph using the value label of the season being specified. In other words, if the graph is for the Summer - I'd like to add the value label "Summer" as the title, caption, or perhaps within the filename. So I'm looking for something like this:

foreach v of numlist 1/4 {

local name getvaluelabel(`v', SEASON) //This function would return the label for a given value by specifying the variable or value label.

...create a graph if SEASON == `v'...title(`name')

}

I have looked everywhere for a way to do this but can't seem to find anything. Perhaps I am overlooking something.


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