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RE: st: "dirty trick": metadata in extended missing value labels


From   "Nick Cox" <[email protected]>
To   <[email protected]>
Subject   RE: st: "dirty trick": metadata in extended missing value labels
Date   Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:36:15 -0000

Note that the official Stata command -ds- already has options -has()-
and -not()- that permit identification of variables with or without
named characteristics (but not their contents, as here). 

There is much scope for different programming styles, but flagging that
a variable has a particular property can be done by assigning any
non-empty text. Putting informative detail _inside_ characteristics has
disadvantages as well as advantages, as the programmer is
correspondingly obliged to, or able to, look inside. 

Nick 
[email protected] 

Jeph Herrin

[email protected] wrote:
> Hi Statalisters,
> 
> the following is a "dirty" but - at least for me - useful trick:
> 

Several have suggested using characteristics to store this kind of
info, and I concur. The main disadvantage of both schemes
is that it can be difficult to figure out which variables have
which characteristics - I wrote the program below to list variables
that either have a certain characteristic defined, or have a
certain value for a given characteristic. Ie,

  dchar, char(graph percent)

will list all variables with characteristic 'graph' defined
and equal to 'percent'; or

  dchar, char(graph)

will simply list all variables with characteristics `graph'
defined. The program also takes a varlist, to limit the search,
and stores the hit list in r(varlist).

hth,
Jeph



*****************************************
*   DCHAR
*   program to get list of variables with
*   certain characteristics
*!
*!  version 1.0       27 Aug 2009
*****************************************

program define dchar, rclass
         syntax [varlist] , CHar(string)
         local char1 : word 1 of `char'
         local char2 : word 2 of `char'
         local rlist ""
         local numvars 0
         di ""
         foreach V of varlist `varlist' {
                 local charlist : char `V'[]
                 local found : list char1 in charlist
                 if `found'>0 {
                         if "`char2'"!="" {
                                 local charval : char `V'[`char1']
                                 if "`charval'"=="`char2'" {
                                         di in y "`V'" _col(40) in g ///
				          "`char1'"  _col(50) "`char2'"
                                         local rlist "`rlist'`V' "
                                         local numvars = `numvars'+1
                                 }
                         }
                         else {
                                 local charval : char `V'[`char1']
                                 di in y "`V'" _col(40) in g ///
				   "`char1'" _col(50) "`charval'"
                                 local rlist "`rlist'`V' "
                                 local numvars = `numvars'+1
                         }
                 }
         }
         return local varlist "`rlist'"
         return scalar numvars= `numvars'
end
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