Re: st: Removing variables if missing a particular observation

[Nick Baker <nb419@cam.ac.uk>]

Thanks very much for your help!

Nick 

On 11 Apr 2013, at 16:15, Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com> wrote:

> First problem:
> 
> You are confusing -drop-ping of variables and -drop-ping of
> observations. Forgetting about your loop, the generic statement
> 
> drop `var' if missing(`var') in 1
> 
> is illegal, as you can't simultaneously -drop- variables and
> observations. (Saying that it is "not working" is an odd description,
> unless you mean that your code produces an error message.)
> 
> The loop that you want is (for example)
> 
> foreach var of varlist _all {
>       su `var' if date == ym(2004,3), meanonly
>       if r(min) == . drop `var'
> }
> 
> Second problem: Note first that _all is not pertinent here. At most it
> is a way of designating all variable names concisely, but you want all
> distinct values of a variable.
> 
> More positively, this is an FAQ.
> 
> FAQ     . . . . . . . . . . Making foreach go through all values of a variable
>        . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  N. J. Cox
>        8/05    Is there a way to tell Stata to try all values of a
>                particular variable in a foreach statement without
>                specifying them?
> http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/data-management/try-all-values-with-foreach/
> 
> Nick
> njcoxstata@gmail.com
> 
> 
> On 11 April 2013 15:57, Nick Baker <nb419@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> 
>> I have a sample of mutual fund returns data and I wish to analyse only those
>> funds with returns over a particular time period. Currently my data is of
>> the format:
>> 
>> Date     fundret1   fundret3   fundret4
>> 2004m3          .        2.2       3.15
>> 2004m4          .        3.1       -1.5 2004m5        2.3          .
>> 2.1
>> 2004m6        1.1          .        1.8
>> 
>> 
>> I have two problems. I want to delete all variables that have a missing
>> value for 2004m3. At the moment I am trying the following:
>> 
>> foreach var of varlist _all {
>> 
>> drop `var' if missing(`var') in 1
>> }
>> 
>> since 2004m3 is the first observation, but this is not working.
>> 
>> A second problem is that I wish to loop over all funds. They are numbered
>> from 1 to 4722 but due to some prior deletions the sequence of funds does
>> not include every value. I do not want to use _all because the dataset will
>> include variables other than fund returns eventually. Any ideas if it
>> possible to create a loop in such circumstances?
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