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Re: st: string variable


From   Nick Cox <[email protected]>
To   [email protected]
Subject   Re: st: string variable
Date   Fri, 3 Aug 2012 09:07:29 -0500

Given access to Stata I can confirm

1. The FAQ that I referred to is

FAQ     . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ado-files and string comparisons
        . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  N. J. Cox
        4/01    Why does a program defined by an ado-file sometimes
                not work when given a string comparison?
                http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/programming/
                ado-files-and-string-comparisons/

Note that -search string- in Stata would have pointed you to that FAQ.
The Statalist FAQ advises looking at the Stata FAQ before posting,

2. -_gwtmean.ado- from SSC is written under -version 3.0- and so the
problem explained in the FAQ above will certainly bite.

Here is a demo of how easy it to get a weighted mean variable via
-statsby- and -merge-:

. sysuse auto, clear
(1978 Automobile Data)

. save auto2
file auto2.dta saved

. statsby mean = r(mean) , by(rep78, missing) : su mpg [w=length] , meanonly
(running summarize on estimation sample)

      command:  summarize mpg [fweight= length], meanonly
         mean:  r(mean)
           by:  rep78

Statsby groups
----+--- 1 ---+--- 2 ---+--- 3 ---+--- 4 ---+--- 5
......

. merge 1:m rep78 using auto2

    Result                           # of obs.
    -----------------------------------------
    not matched                             0
    matched                                74  (_merge==3)
    -----------------------------------------

Nick

On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 3:36 AM, "Fabian Schönenberger" <[email protected]> wrote:

> Many thanks Nick.
>
> -encode- worked fine.
>
> Fabian
>
> -------- Original-Nachricht --------
>> Datum: Fri, 3 Aug 2012 08:41:12 +0100
>> Von: Nick Cox <[email protected]>
>> An: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
>> Betreff: Re: st: string variable
>
>> My guess is that -wtmean()- is written for some version of Stata --
>> say around Stata 5 -- sufficiently old that by an old misfeature it
>> behaves as if the quotation marks were stripped on parsing. I wrote an
>> FAQ on this about 10 or 12 years ago, but can't find it using only a
>> phone.
>>
>> Your solutions include
>>
>>   to rewrite -wtmean()-
>>
>> to -encode- your string variable and work with the corresponding
>> numeric variable (this is probably closest to what else you are doing)
>>
>> to write a loop using -summarize- and -replace-
>>
>> to use -statsby-.
>>
>> Nick
>>
>> On 3 Aug 2012, at 06:14, "Fabian Schönenberger" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> > Dear Statalist
>> >
>> > I try the following commands:
>> >
>> > . levelsof SIZEBM,local(levels)
>> > `"BH"' `"BL"' `"BM"' `"SH"' `"SL"' `"SM"'
>> >
>> > foreach l of local levels {
>> >  egen meanwreturn_`l'=wtmean(trt1m) if SIZEBM=="`l'",weight(size) by
>> > (datemt)
>> >  }
>> > BH not found
>> > r(111);
>> >
>> > wtmean is from SSC.
>> >
>> > SIZEBM is a string variable, generated with the command
>> >
>> > egen SIZEBM=concat(SIZE BM)
>> >
>> > It seems the problem is not the foreach, but the term -
>> > SIZEBM=="`l'" -
>> >
>> > Any ideas the solve the problem highly appreciated.

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