To expand on this point:
The syntax of -forvalues- depends on an idiosyncratic
idea of a _range_:
forvalues lname = range {
commands referring to `lname'
}
where range is
#1(#d)#2 meaning #1 to #2 in steps of #d
#1/#2 meaning #1 to #2 in steps of 1
#1 #t to #2 meaning #1 to #2 in steps of #t - #1
#1 #t : #2 meaning #1 to #2 in steps of #t - #1
If -forvalues- accepted arbitrary numlists, it would no longer
have a separate rationale. Its rationale is that the range
can be computed on the fly: it is not stored as the equivalent
numlist, thus allowing an edge in speed on -foreach-. For
some applications, e.g. when looping over many observations
is unavoidable, this can be very important.
Nick
[email protected]
Nick Cox
> -forval- does not accept all possible numlists.
>
> The documentation doesn't claim this and
> it doesn't do it anyway.
>
> The limit is thus not the issue. You
> need to use -foreach-.
Daniel Mueller
> > I have a longer -numlist- to process with -forvalues-. I
> > can't see why the following does not work:
> >
> > forval n = 100(100)1000 1000(500)5000 5000(1000)10000
> > 10000(5000)50000 50000(10000)100000 {
> > invalid syntax
> > r(198);
> >
> > -whelp limits- says the limit of a -numlist- is 1,600. I
> > have 36 above. And the actual list in my example is even
> > longer than that.
*
* 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/
