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st: RE: RE: local variable and indexing into a variable


From   "Nick Cox" <[email protected]>
To   <[email protected]>
Subject   st: RE: RE: local variable and indexing into a variable
Date   Fri, 24 Jun 2005 08:59:10 +0100

What David suggests is fine and -- more to the point -- 
legal -- whereas what Florence tried is illegal. The
way to see this is to look at the syntax diagram 
for -replace-, which makes it clear that a existing
varname (only) can appear on the LHS of an equals 
sign. 

A quite different point is that David's suggestion
obliges Stata to test every observation to see 
if _n == _N. 

replace `var' = 0 in l 

lets Stata go straight to the last observation. 

Nick 
[email protected] 

David E Moore
 
> Stata prefers:
> 
> replace `var' = 0 if _n==_N
 
NEYMOTIN, FLORENCE
 
> Hi, I tried typing:
> 
> foreach var in x y {
> replace `var'[_N]=0
> }
> 
> then it considers [_N] a "weight" when clearly I want it to 
> just change the last
> observation of
> both x and y to be zeroes.
> 
> alternatively, I tried the inner line as: ( replace 
> `var[_N]'=0 )    and then it
> doesn't recognize
> var[_N] and thinks that it is an entirely new local reference.
> Is there a correct syntax here, or does it look like there is 
> some other sort of mistake in my coding ?

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