Re: st: Keeping the same variable with collapse- Reference to Sep.2002 posting

[Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com>]

The specific reference here is, or should be,

FAQ     . . . . . . . . . . . . Keeping the same variable labels with collapse
        . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  N. J. Cox
        2/03    How can I collapse my dataset and keep the same
                variable labels?
                http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/data/variables.html

and your problem is that you are not following the advice! It is easy
to fix, however.

Where you have e.g.

foreach v in offshore-merge_gpdusd

that should be

foreach v of var offshore-merge_gpdusd

The FAQ examples all have that form.

Nick

On Tue, May 8, 2012 at 6:12 PM, Henao Arbelaez, Camila
<CHenaoArbelaez@imf.org> wrote:
> In the FAQ (Nicholas Cox, Sept. 2002/updated Sept. 2003) I found instructions on how to keep the original variable labels after collapsing a dataset. I only changed the variable list (on which to apply the loop), but when I run I have a "invalid syntax" problem.
> My code runs as following. Maybe you can help me figure out what is wrong. The loop which presents the problem is the last one.
>
> *1. Copy variable labels before collapse
>
> foreach v in offshore-merge_gpdusd {
>        local l`v' : variable label `v'
>        if `"`l`v''"' == "" {
>                local l`v' "`v'"
>  }
>  }
>
> local list offshore-merge_gpdusd
>
>  *2.Collapse
>
> collapse (mean)  offshore-merge_gpdusd, by(country year ifs)
>
> *3. Label original variables with the local created in step 1.
>
>        foreach v in  offshore- merge_gpdusd {
>        label var `v' "`l`v''"
>        }
>
> Thanks for your help,

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