st: A Tale of Two Macros: Why are these macros producing different results?

[William Sankey <wsankey@gmail.com>]

Good afternoon Statalist,

I have two different macros operating in different parts of my code, I
developed the first macro some time ago and the second macro recently.
I believed these two macros would give me the same output, however,
the first macro is producing far fewer observations than the second.
It seems that the first is misclassifying observations and though I
cannot figure out why.

Any help in deciphering what it is about the first macro that would
produce fewer observations would be much appreciated.

The first macro set:

  ***Cancer

  local ICD2 "Diagnosis1 Diagnosis2 Diagnosis3 Diagnosis4 Diagnosis5"
   foreach X of varlist `ICD2' {
   replace cancer =1 if inlist(`X',"150","151" "157" "162" "183" "191"
"196" "197" "198" "199" "200" "208")
   }

   local PMT2 "Diagnosis_PMT_A_1 Diagnosis_PMT_A_2 Diagnosis_PMT_B_1
Diagnosis_PMT_B_2 Diagnosis_PMT_C_1 Diagnosis_PMT_C_2"

   foreach X of varlist `PMT2' {
   replace cancer =1 if inlist(`X',"150","151" "157" "162" "183" "191"
"196" "197" "198" "199" "200" "208")
   }


The second macro set:

gen DIAG_1 =  Diagnosis1
gen DIAG_2 =  Diagnosis2
gen DIAG_3 =  Diagnosis3
gen DIAG_4 =  Diagnosis4
gen DIAG_5 =  Diagnosis5

gen ALT_A_1 =  Diagnosis_PMT_A_1
gen ALT_A_2 =  Diagnosis_PMT_A_2
gen ALT_B_1 =  Diagnosis_PMT_B_1
gen ALT_B_2 =  Diagnosis_PMT_B_2
gen ALT_C_1 =  Diagnosis_PMT_C_1
gen ALT_C_2 =  Diagnosis_PMT_C_2
  ***Cancer

   forval j = 1/5 {
        replace cancer=1 ///
       if inlist(DIAG_`j',"150","151", "157", "162", "183","191",
"196", "197" "198" "199" "200" "208")
       }

   local letter "A B C"
    foreach i in `letter' {
     forval e = 1/2 {
        replace cancer=1 ///
       if (inlist(ALT_`i'_`e',"150","151" "157" "162" "183" "191"
"196" "197" "198" "199" "200" "208")
          }
         }
        }

Thanks,
Will

--
William J. Sankey
Johns Hopkins University
MA Public Policy '12
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