st: egen fill() for string variables?

["Wallace, John" <John_Wallace@affymetrix.com>]

I've found the fill() function for egen to be a very valuable tool, but I recently found it doesn't work for repeating patterns of string values.  For example, if I wanted to generate a variable containing "cat, dog, rat, fish" for a set of 100 observations, I would first -expand- the observations to 400 by using

 

.expand 4

 

and then using my idealized egen situation I'd type

 

.egen str4 animal = fill(cat, dog, rat, fish, cat, dog, rat, fish) /*possibly with double quotes enclosing the strings - e.g. "fish" */

 

does such a command exist somewhere?

 

If not, would a workaround such as the following work? (I'm not at a Stata enabled machine this morning)

 

.expand 4

.egen animal = fill(1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4)

.label define critter 1 "cat" 2 "dog" 3 "rat" 4 "fish"

.label value animal critter

.decode animal, gen(str_animal)

 

Thanks

John Wallace | Research Associate | Test Method Development

AFFYMETRIX, INC. | 3380 Central Expressway | Santa Clara, CA 95051 | Tel:  408-731-5574 | Fax:  408-481-0435