help whatsnew
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title
Additions to Stata since release 11.0
Description
Update history:
Stata 11.0 base 13jul2009
updated to 21oct2009
This file records the additions and fixes made to Stata since the release
of version 11.0. The end of this file provides links for earlier
additions and fixes.
Updates are available for free over the Internet. Click here to obtain
the latest update, or see updates for detailed instructions.
The most recent changes are listed first.
-------- update 21oct2009 -----------------------------------------------------
Ado-files
1. icd9 had its databases updated to use codes through the V27 update
released on 1 Oct 2009.
2. ivregress, in certain cases involving time-series operators with
variables bound in parentheses, reported a "parentheses unbalanced"
error. This has been fixed.
3. margins with option eydx() or eyex() (regardless of whether option
atmeans or at() is also specified) would report the error "default
prediction is a function of possibly stochastic quantities other
than e(b)" for some models producing negative predicted values using
the current data. This has been fixed.
4. The At tab on the margins dialog box now lists the overall
statistics in the statistics combo box.
5. Mata function optimize() failed to replace the old parameter values
with new ones specified in optimize_init_params(). This has been
fixed.
6. Mata function optimize_evaluate() reported the "attempt to
dereference NULL pointer" run-time error when used without first
calling optimize(). This has been fixed.
7. regress did not allow all display options to be abbreviated when
replaying results. This has been fixed.
8. The dialog box for stcurve failed to output options specified on the
Legend tab. This has been fixed.
9. xtline dropped observations that contained missing values in the
variables being plotted. This was not intended and has been fixed.
10. predict after xtmixed now allows out-of-sample predictions that are
based on estimated random effects, provided that the out-of-sample
observations correspond to groups that are represented in the
estimation sample. The one exception is standardized residuals
(option rstandard), which are statistically appropriate only within
the estimation sample.
11. xtpcse with aweights and factor variables included in the model
reported an error message. This has been fixed.
Stata executable, all platforms
12. graph export could crash when exporting PostScript graphs using a
nondefault font that could not be found on the computer. This has
been fixed.
13. label language ..., delete, when the language name being deleted was
the current dataset language name, would leave some labels in the
dataset from the deleted language name. This has been fixed.
14. Mata class matrices were not allowed in optional argument lists of
Mata functions. This has been fixed.
15. Mata function eltype() now returns "class" for Mata class matrices
and "classdef" for Mata class functions.
16. _ms_extract_varlist with option noomit ignored generic factor terms
whose base level was fvset. This has been fixed.
17. regress ran slower than usual for small datasets with a small number
of independent variables. This has been fixed.
18. _return failed to clear matrix row and column names from dropped r()
results. This would cause set memory to complain that "Stata
matrices have not been cleared" and prevent clear matrix from fully
removing all of Stata's matrices. This has been fixed.
19. testparm dropped factor terms whose base level was fvset. This has
been fixed.
20. The Data Editor has the following new features and fixes:
A. Double-clicking on the column heading for an existing variable
now opens the dialog for variable properties.
B. Live filtering can now be disabled.
C. It was not possible to paste variable names longer than 80
characters. Now Stata will accept text longer than 80
characters, attempt to form a valid Stata variable name, and
apply the first 80 characters to the variable's label.
21. Stata's old programmable dialog system was mistakenly disabled on
Windows and Unix(GUI) platforms in the 26aug2009 update. This
functionality has been restored.
Stata executable, Windows
22. The Do-file Editor has the following new features and fixes:
A. New option "Replace all in selection" restricts the replacement
of all occurrences to the currently selected text.
B. When a "Replace all" was requested of a string, s, with a string
s1 that contained s, an infinite loop happened. This has been
fixed.
C. "Balance Braces" under the "Advanced" submenu in the "Edit" menu
did not work if the close brace was the last character of the
file. This has been fixed.
D. "Match Brace" under the "Advanced" submenu in the "Edit" menu
selected the section of code between the focused brace and its
matching brace. It now selects only the matching brace.
E. Syntax highlighting settings could not be restored to factory
defaults. This has been fixed.
F. When a line was selected by clicking on the line number, the
selected line and the following line were both executed. This
has been fixed.
G. Under certain conditions and when auto-indentation was enabled,
the Do-file Editor computed the wrong indentation length for the
current line based on the indentation length of the previous
line. This has been fixed.
23. Applying the "Factory Settings" with some very specific windowing
arrangements could crash Stata. This has been fixed.
24. If the Review window was not initially shown because of a tabbed
configuration, commands were not added to the Review window. This
has been fixed.
Stata executable, Mac
25. In Mac OS X, PDF is the preferred format for images copied to the
Clipboard. However, many legacy applications, such as Microsoft
Office 2004, do not support PDF images from the Clipboard. Stata
copies an image in both PDF and bitmap to the Clipboard for
compatibility with both modern and legacy applications. Some modern
applications, such as PowerPoint 2008, will still mistakenly paste
in a bitmap image even if the preferred PDF image is available from
the Clipboard. To avoid this behavior, you can now disable the
inclusion of a bitmap image when copying an image to the Clipboard
by opening the Preferences dialog and unchecking the "Include a
bitmap image in addition to a PDF image" checkbox or by setting
include_bitmap to off.
26. graph export could crash when exporting PostScript graphs in the
rare case of a nondefault, TrueType font that could not be converted
to PostScript. This has been fixed.
27. The 26aug2009 update introduced a bug in the Graph Editor where
changing a selection in a pulldown menu of the graph toolbar would
have no effect on the graph being edited. This has been fixed.
28. Opening the Data Editor with an if condition could crash Stata.
This has been fixed.
Stata executable, Unix
29. Right-clicking within the Data Editor window could cause it to
crash. This has been fixed.
30. Stata does not support Unicode and must convert Unicode characters
inputted into Stata to ASCII. Stata now displays a warning when it
cannot convert Unicode to ASCII and accepts the text it could
convert.
31. Copy Table has been added to the contextual menu for the Results
window.
-------- update 30sep2009 -----------------------------------------------------
Ado-files
1. Online help and the search index have been brought up to date for
Stata Journal 9(3).
2. areg with interactions in the indepvars would report an invalid
operator error if one of the virtual interaction variables was
omitted because of collinearity. This has been fixed.
3. clogit for some models would take a much longer time computing
starting values compared with when it was called under version
control less than 11. This has been fixed.
4. dotplot with option bar produced an error message and did not draw
the graph. This has been fixed.
5. estimates use would report a Mata run-time error when attempting to
restore estimation results containing a matrix with zero rows or
columns. This has been fixed.
6. margins is now faster when marginal effects of factor variables are
computed.
7. margins with options eydx() and eyex() would report that "prediction
<=0, eydx() not available" when it should not have. This has been
fixed.
8. margins with nl results and a marginal effects or elasticity option
(e.g., dydx(), eyex(), eydx(), or dyex()) would report an error
about not finding a variable in the list of covariates, even when
option variables() was specified. This has been fixed.
9. mi impute logit used a single uniform random number to obtain all
imputed values within an imputation rather than using
observation-specific uniform random numbers. This has been fixed.
10. ml and Mata's moptimize() with multiple techniques would report the
Mata run-time error "subscript invalid" when searching for improved
initial values. This has been fixed.
11. ml init and ml with option init() allowed only factor-variable
notation in column names of matrices. Now the name=# syntax
supports factor-variable specifications.
12. ml plot did not allow factor-variable notation. This has been
fixed.
13. _ms_unab is a new undocumented programmers' tool that unabbreviates
matrix stripe elements by using the variable names in the current
dataset.
14. Mata function optimize() used with evaluator d0 or v0 when the
numerical derivatives could not be computed would sometimes crash
Stata. This has been fixed.
15. postrtoe is a new undocumented command for moving results stored in
r() into e().
16. stci, when used with prefix by, option by(), if, or in, produced
correct confidence intervals but reported standard errors that were
based on a survivor-function estimate that did not restrict the
sample. This has been fixed.
17. sts graph, hazard ignored value labels of the variable specified
within option by() when displaying the graph legend. It also did
not respect the variable label of the by-variable in the note
displayed when option separate was used. These issues have been
fixed.
18. sunflower with option addplot() would only render the plots in
option addplot(). This has been fixed.
19. svy regression models would incorrectly report missing standard
errors for multistage designs that had a strata variable svyset in
stage k+1 but not in stage k. svy was incorrectly determining that
every stratum in stage k contained only one sampling unit. This has
been fixed.
20. svy: tabulate allowed option over() when it should not have. This
has been fixed.
21. xtgee for some models would take a much longer time computing
starting values compared with when it was called under version
control less than 11. This has been fixed.
-------- update 14sep2009 -----------------------------------------------------
Ado-files
1. Almost all Stata estimation commands now run faster when run quietly
because they now skip the code used to formulate the table of
estimation results. Previously, only the actual displaying of the
estimation table was suppressed. You will notice the speed increase
the most when using prefix commands such as bootstrap and fracpoly,
because they execute estimation commands repeatedly and quietly.
2. gmm exited with an error message if you used the moment-evaluator
program version, specified derivatives, and used the xtinstruments()
option. This has been fixed.
3. mi impute mvn and mi impute monotone dialogs did not allow multiple
imputed variables. This has been fixed.
4. reshape issued an r(181) error if your j variable had a value label
and you reshaped from long to wide and back to long, but you added
the string option when reshaping back to long. This has been fixed.
5. stcox, when used with options tvc() and texp(), now issues an error
message when the expression specified in texp() is not a proper
function of analysis time, _t.
6. xthtaylor with option vce(bootstrap) returned an error message when
the model contained collinear terms. This has been fixed.
7. xtlogit with option fe returned a conformability error when a model
containing collinear variables was run under version 10.1 or
earlier. This has been fixed.
8. xtmixed, when used to model standard linear regression (no random
effects) with heteroskedastic residuals, has been modified to avoid
calculations involving very large matrices.
Stata executable, Mac
9. Some graphs would render to the screen with a stroke or fill color
of black for some graph objects. This has been fixed.
10. Clicking a link in the Viewer that is supposed to go to a named
destination within a help file would sometimes not go to the correct
destination within the help file. This has been fixed.
-------- update 26aug2009 -----------------------------------------------------
1. The 18aug2009 Stata 10.1 update items 4, 15, 19, 25, 26, 30, 43, 59,
65, 66, and 69 have now been applied to Stata 11. The other items
from that update were applied to Stata 11 prior to its initial
release.
Ado-files
2. ereturn display exits with an error if scalar e(k_eq) contains a
value that is not equal to the number of equations in e(b). Prior
to Stata 11, ereturn display was oblivious to the scalars in e().
The old behavior is now preserved under version control.
3. margins, when used with svy results that employed option subpop()
and when some of the independent variables contained missing values
in observations outside the subpopulation sample, incorrectly
refused to estimate margins under two additional conditions.
a. When option subpop() was also specified on command margins and
when option vce(unconditional) was specified on command margins,
margins incorrectly reported an error that observations were
dropped from the estimation sample. This has been fixed.
b. When option subpop() was not specified on command margins,
margins would incorrectly report all margins as "(not
estimable)", even for margins that were estimable. This has
been fixed.
4. Mata function moptimize_init_eq_colnames() would only work with
equations with a single predictor. This has been fixed.
5. Mata function optimize() with constraints and
optimize_init_tracelevel() set to "params", "step", "gradient", or
"hessian" would report a conformability error in Mata. This has
been fixed.
6. mi import ice with option automatic and when the dataset being
imported contained string variables exited with a "type mismatch"
error. This has been fixed.
7. ml model dropped constant-only equations that were not supplied with
an equation name. Thus the specification
. ml model lf myeval (y = x) ()
was treated as
. ml model lf myeval (y = x).
This has been fixed.
8. predict with both option smooth and option rmse() after sspace with
method(hybrid) or method(dejong) and with a nonstationary
state-space model produced root mean squared error values that were
too small. This effect was less pronounced for later values in the
series. This has been fixed.
9. regress with prefix by reported an error message in addition to the
usual warning when the last displayed group contained no
observations. This has been fixed.
10. xtmixed, when used to estimate the residual variance structure in a
model with no random effects, would issue a Mata run-time error if
either factor variables were specified or variables were omitted
because of collinearity in the fixed-effects portion of the model.
This has been fixed.
11. xtunitroot would exit with various obscure error messages or report
"no observations" if the variable being tested contained missing
values for the first time period for all panels, even if the test
could be conducted using subsequent time periods' data. This has
been fixed.
Stata executable, all platforms
12. anova with option repeated(), when option dropemptycells was not
specified and when there were empty cells in the between-subjects
error term, reported values too large for the between-subjects error
term, e(N_bse), and the Huynh-Feldt corrections, e(hf#), and the
p-values based on these correction factors were consequently
incorrect. This has been fixed. The Greenhouse-Geisser and Box
corrections and the p-values based upon them were correct.
13. anova with ill-conditioned data suffered loss of precision. This
has been fixed.
14. Calling browse or edit commands from a do-file where the command
specified a varlist or restricted the observations using if or in
showed the entire dataset inside the Data Editor. This has been
fixed.
15. clist failed to recognize the data in memory. This has been fixed.
16. Function colnumb() failed to match an equation specification on
columns containing time-series operators or factor variables. This
has been fixed.
17. margins with a nonlinear prediction after ologit, oprobit, or any
other model without an intercept in one of its equations would
attempt to use the chain rule for covariate patterns that it should
not have, resulting in a subscript invalid error from Mata. This
has been fixed.
18. matrix colnames failed to unset equation names when used with an
unadorned colon character, as in matrix coleq b = :. This has been
fixed.
19. The quoted option of odbc insert did not work. This has been fixed.
20. suest with the same factor variable but different levels across
multiple estimation results would report the factor-variable name in
an incorrect position in the regression table. This has been fixed.
21. In the Data Editor, pasting external Clipboard data did not support
variable names that were longer than 32 characters. In this
situation, Stata will now attempt to form a valid variable name and
store the original long name as the variable's label.
22. In the Data Editor, editing the contents of a string variable, which
resulted in the variable's string width increasing, caused the Data
Editor to display the new width improperly. This has been fixed.
23. The Window menu now has an entry for the Variables Manager.
Stata executable, Windows
24. Windows Metafiles (WMF) created by graph export or copied to the
Clipboard had incorrectly positioned text. This has been fixed.
25. graph export to PNG and TIFF formats using option width() crashed
Stata. This has been fixed.
26. window menu refresh and window menu clear sometimes caused the
restore icon for the Results window to disappear. This has been
fixed.
27. In the Data Editor, deleting a variable that was used to filter
observations sometimes caused Stata to crash. This has been fixed.
28. In the Variables Manager, unpinning the Variable Properties window
caused the buttons for managing value labels and notes to not work.
This has been fixed.
Stata executable, Mac
29. If the Data Editor was already open when data was loaded, Stata
sometimes crashed. This has been fixed.
30. Stata will no longer resave an unmodified do-file when the do-file
is executed from the Do-file Editor.
31. 64-bit Mac: The Do-file Editor now automatically adds an
end-of-line delimiter at the end of a do-file if one does not
already exist. Stata requires that an end-of-line delimiter exist
on all lines in a do-file that are to be executed.
32. After changing the aspect ratio of a graph from the Graph Editor,
the graph window would not automatically resize to the new aspect
ratio. This has been fixed.
33. The Make Text Bigger/Smaller menu items were disabled if the content
area of a Viewer was clicked. This has been fixed.
Stata executable, Unix
34. You can now double-click on a snapshot in the Data Editor snapshot
dialog to restore the snapshot.
35. The Variables Manager reset button issued a warning before resetting
the variables properties. This has been fixed.
-------- update 14aug2009 -----------------------------------------------------
Ado-files
1. Online help and the search index have been brought up to date for
Stata Journal 9(2).
2. estat phtest after stcox reported an error message when factor
variables were included in the model. This has been fixed.
3. estat summarize after nlsur exited with an error if option
variables() was not specified with nlsur. This has been fixed.
4. estimates table reported the error "nothing found where name
expected" when splitting a wide table. This has been fixed.
5. ml display failed to recognize Stata 10 estimation results that were
restored using estimates use. This has been fixed.
6. _robust ignored the weight specification. This affected only
user-written commands that used _robust directly. It did not affect
any official Stata estimators, nor did it affect any user-written
estimators that used ml or Mata functions optimize() or moptimize().
This has been fixed.
7. xtmixed, when used to fit models with no random effects and with
heteroskedastic residual variances, would perform an LR test
(comparing the mixed model with standard linear regression) that
failed to acknowledge that the mixed model had no random effects.
If the heteroskedasticity occurred over exactly two groups, xtmixed
reported a chibar(01) test statistic when instead it should have
reported a standard chi-squared with one degree of freedom. If
there were more than two groups, xtmixed labeled the chi-squared
test as conservative when, in fact, the test was precise. This has
been fixed.
-------- previous updates -----------------------------------------------------
See whatsnew10to11.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Also see
+------------------------------------------------------------+
| help file contents years |
|------------------------------------------------------------|
| this file Stata 11.0 2009 to present |
| whatsnew10to11 Stata 11.0 new release 2009 |
| whatsnew10 Stata 10.0 and 10.1 2007 to 2009 |
| whatsnew9to10 Stata 10.0 new release 2007 |
| whatsnew9 Stata 9.0, 9.1, and 9.2 2005 to 2007 |
| whatsnew8to9 Stata 9.0 new release 2005 |
| whatsnew8 Stata 8.0, 8.1, and 8.2 2003 to 2005 |
| whatsnew7to8 Stata 8.0 new release 2003 |
| whatsnew7 Stata 7.0 2001 to 2002 |
| whatsnew6to7 Stata 7.0 new release 2000 |
| whatsnew6 Stata 6.0 1999 to 2000 |
+------------------------------------------------------------+
Manual: [U] 1.3 What's new,
[U] 3 Resources for learning and using Stata,
[U] 3.2 The http://www.stata.com web site,
[U] 3.3 The http://www.stata-press.com web site,
[U] 3.4 The Stata listserver,
[U] 3.5 The Stata Journal and the Stata Technical Bulletin,
[U] 3.6 Updating and adding features from the web,
[U] 17.8 How do I install official updates?,
[U] 28 Using the Internet to keep up to date
Help: updates; [R] net, [R] sj, stb, [R] update, upunix, and table
above
