Re: st: conceptual question regarding -egen-

[Rose Medeiros <rosem@cisunix.unh.edu>]

Daniel,
You are correct about what egen does, but you should be able to do what 
you want to do using summarize and return. See -help return-
Rose
daniel waxman wrote:


> If one performs -egen- across the entire dataset rather than -,by()- then it
> returns what is essentially the same scalar for every observation.
>
> Is there any way to actually generate a scalar rather than a variable?
> For example, I am interested in having a scalar or local macro which
> contains the largest value of either of two variables
>
> i.e. 
> . egen maxmort = max(p_pred_mort)
> . egen predmort = max(p_act_mort)
>
> . local maxmax = max(maxmort, predmort)
> . drop maxmort predmort
>
> I know that bytes are cheap these days, but it seems odd that I have to
> generate 100,000 of each of these values when I only need one.  Or do I have
> major conceptual issues?
>
>
> *
> *   For searches and help try:
> *   http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
> *   http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
> *   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
>
>  

--
Rose Anne Medeiros
Department of Sociology / Family Research Laboratory
University of New Hampshire
126 Horton Social Science Center
20 College Road
Durham, NH 03824
U.S.A.

*
*   For searches and help try:
*   http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
*   http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
*   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/