Re: st: does -mf_panelsetup- need presorted a panel with a numerical panel id?

[László Sándor <sandorl@gmail.com>]

Thanks, Nick, point taken on string panel identifiers. (Though Mata
could work differently.)

But I think it is more important that -mf_st_panel- needs sorted data.
Yes, it's logical for a simple matrix utility, but still undocumented,
I think. (You could always hope that Mata is more powerful — though
then it would be bloated and slow.)


On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 7:16 PM, Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com> wrote:
> I disagree on the lack of documentation. The help and manual entry for
> -xtset- explain that panel identifiers must be numeric variables.
>
> Why I do not know, but you cannot get far with panel data analysis in
> Stata without satisfying this rule.
>
> Nick
> njcoxstata@gmail.com
>
>
> On 18 July 2013 23:11, László Sándor <sandorl@gmail.com> wrote:
>> A quick update: My code runs OK if I -tsset- and -sort- first on a
>> numerical panel id. So this look like an undocumented requirement.
>>
>> It makes sense from Mata's capabilities, it is not there to collect
>> row "panelid == same string", but it still would be nice to document.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 5:49 PM, László Sándor <sandorl@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I am trying to troubleshoot what's wrong with my code under Stata/MP
>>> 12.1 for Win 64 code.
>>>
>>> Perhaps it does not do its job if the st_view it works on does not
>>> have a contiguous panels (i.e. the data is not sorted on the panel
>>> identifier)?
>>>
>>> And is it a problem if my supposed panel id is a string variable?
>>>
>>> I found no relevant documentation on this.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Lasylo
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