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| From | Maarten Buis <maartenlbuis@gmail.com> |
| To | statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu |
| Subject | Re: st: sort within values |
| Date | Wed, 26 Sep 2012 10:46:05 +0200 |
On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 10:19 AM, Michele Santacatterina wrote: > i was wondering how to sort a numeric variable within the values. Here an example, var1 contains 2 values (12,21) i would like to sort within var1 in order to create var2 = (12,12) What is the sort order of two or more identical numbers? The sensible solution to that question, and the one that is by default implemented in Stata, is: random, as there is no way of distinguishing between identical numbers. Alternatively you may want to keep the order that existed before sorting. This is strictly speaking not a sensible solution to the question, as you assume that there is more information (the original sort order) than was given by the question, but it can be useful sometimes. In that case you can use the -stable- option in -sort-. However, if you think that the original sort-order is that important, the better solution is to create a variable that stores the original sort order, by typing in Stata: -gen order_id = _n-, than you can sort by typing: -sort var1 sort_id-. That way you are explicit about the fact that you use information from the original sort order, and that information does not get accidentally lost when you make a mistake when sorting. -- Maarten --------------------------------- Maarten L. Buis WZB Reichpietschufer 50 10785 Berlin 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/