I think Ulrich went to the heart of the matter:
this really pivots on taste. However, that is
linked partly to readability. Moreover, it
is also important to have code that you
can understand, can check, can debug, and can come
back to and revise. If you are in a group, it
is naturally also important that others can
understand your code.
-cond()- can be a natural way of doing it, and
there are problems in which it offers a very
elegant solution. Your problem appears so
messy that breaking it up into bits as Ulrich
suggested is certainly what I would prefer.
As for (machine) efficiency, my guess is that the
advantage must lie with a single statement.
Stata is clearly much faster and much better
at interpreting a Stata command than people
are, but doing it through multiple statements
will usually be slower in machine time. However,
if it takes the user longer to write the code,
that is no advantage.
The problem of balancing parentheses is
lessened in any good text editor which will
have a facility for finding a matching parenthesis
and a way of highlighting an unmatched parenthesis.
David Kantor is very fond of -cond()- and
may offer counter-arguments.
Nick
[email protected]
Annelies Vos
> Thanks Ulrich,
> I liked the cond () solution because I didn't know this one...
> This seems much more efficient.
Ulrich Kohler
> > I don't know why you like the solution with cond(), but I prefer a
> > solution
> > with -inlist()- or -inrange()- for tasks like this this.
> > With inlist() your
> > your code-snippet might be coded like this:
> >
> > gen byte origin = 7 if nation == 3
> > replace origin = 10 if inlist(nation,8,12,69,139,141)
> > replace origin = 8 if inlist(nation,14,82)
> > ...
> >
> > Others might propose a solution with -recode- but thats a
> matter of taste.
> > In any case: see -help inlist- or -help recode- for more.
Annelies Vos
> >> in the FAQs I found the following very useful recommendation:
> >> instead of:
> >> . generate byte a = 1 if y <= 20
> >> . replace a = 2 if y > 20 & y <= 30
> >> . replace a = 3 if y > 30 & y <= 40
> >> . replace a = 4 if y > 40 & y <.
> >>
> >> do the following:
> >>
> >> . #delim ;
> >> . generate byte a =
> >> cond(y<=20, 1,
> >> cond(y<=30, 2,
> >> cond(y<=40, 3,
> >> cond(y<., 4,
> >> . ))));
> >>
> >> However, the variable I want to use it for (nationality) has many
> >> values (every country in the world), which should be recoded into
> >> countrygroups. I don't really like the idea of having to count the
> >> number of "opening brackets": "(" , to know with how many "closing
> >> brackets": ")" I should end. Is there any easier solution for this?
> >>
> >> to explain a piece of my syntax:
> >> > #delim;
> >> > generate byte origin =
> >> > cond(natio==3, 7,
> >> > cond(natio==8, 10,
> >> > cond(natio==12, 10,
> >> > cond(natio==14, 8,
> >> > cond(natio==28, -9,
> >> > cond(natio==54, 6,
> >> > cond(natio==69, 10,
> >> > cond(natio==82, 8,
> >> > cond(natio==139, 10,
> >> > cond(natio==141, 10,
> >>
> >> ...etcetera
> >>
> >> ...which I would like to end on another way than:
> >> > . ))))))))))
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