Re: st: Ranking observations of a variable across a set of variables

[Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com>]

For a detailed review of this and similar problems, see

SJ-9-1  pr0046  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Speaking Stata: Rowwise
        (help rowsort, rowranks if installed) . . . . . . . . . . .  N. J. Cox
        Q1/09   SJ 9(1):137--157
        shows how to exploit functions, egen functions, and Mata
        for working rowwise; rowsort and rowranks are introduced

Note that -egen-'s -rank()- function is not producing incorrect
results; it just does not produce what Jennifer wants and does not
claim to. It ranks observations on the values of a variable, not
variables on the values of a set of variables in each observation.

Nick

On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 5:02 AM, Tirthankar Chakravarty
<tirthankar.chakravarty@gmail.com> wrote:

> You probably want Nick Cox's -rowranks- package, available from SSC:
>
> *****************************************
> clear*
> input x1 x2 x3 x4
> 50 10 30 60
> 20 60 10 40
> end
> ssc install rowranks
> rowranks x1-x4, generate(rank1-rank4) field
> li
> *****************************************
>

> On Tue, Nov 1, 2011 at 8:24 PM, Jennifer L. Milosch
> <milosch@umail.ucsb.edu> wrote:

>> I am trying to find the rank of an observation of a variable across a set of
>> variables. My data looks something like this:
>>
>> x1|x2|x3|x4
>> 50|10|30|60
>> 20|60|10|40
>>
>> I want to generate a variable for the rank of x1 compared to the values of
>> x1, x2, x3, and x4 for each observation in the data.  I have tried using
>>
>> -bysort x1 x2 x3 x4: egen rank1=rank(x1)-
>>
>> but it is returning a variable of all ones, which is not correct.  Using the
>> data above, I'm look for variables that are:
>>
>> rank1|rank2|rank3|rank4
>> 2 |4 |3 |1
>> 3 |1 |4 |2
>>

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