st: Generating a variable containing names of other variables

[Thomas Speidel <thomassp@cancerboard.ab.ca>]

I am trying to generate a new variable that contains the name of the 
variable where a certain expression is true.
For example consider the following:

jan        feb        mar        apr        may
0          200        195        203        119
175        193        220        107        0
98         226        0          0          0
...

I want to generate a new variable, say maxmth, that contains the name of 
the variable where the row maximum occurs.
In this case maxmth would look like this:

maxmth
apr
mar
feb
...

I tried something along this:
.egen maxmth=rmax(jan feb mar apr may)
.replace maxmth=_varname if maxmth==feb | maxmth==mar | maxmth==apr | 
maxmth==may

But I don't know how to refer to the variable name...

Thanks,      
--
Thomas Speidel
Statistical Associate
Department of Oncology
Tom Baker Cancer Centre
1331 - 29th Street N.W.
Calgary, AB, T2N 4N4

Tel. (403) 944-3113
Email: thomassp@cancerboard.ab.ca



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