I agree with Jenifer that it is best to create the dataset step by step checking your dataset in
detail after each step. Appart from looking at the datamatrix (which is a good way to get a feel
of what you are doing) I found -list if _merge==1- and -list if _merge==2- also very useful to
detect problems.
Although this is a step by step process, the end result should be a do-file that creates the new
merged file from the original files. (In my orignal code I overwrite the original dataset. This is
bad practice.) You can add automatic checks in that do-file with the -assert- command. With this
do-file you can easily find out what you have done, and change it if you made a mistake. This
practise has saved me lots and lots of time.
HTH,
Maarten
--- "Marino, Jennifer" <[email protected]> wrote:
> (If you're trying to run the code Maarten supplied as a
> do-file and Stata is sticking at that point, you could run it with the
> nostop option, but it's quite a bit safer to run it interactively and
> make sure you're where you want to be at each step.)
-----------------------------------------
Maarten L. Buis
Department of Social Research Methodology
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Boelelaan 1081
1081 HV Amsterdam
The Netherlands
visiting adress:
Buitenveldertselaan 3 (Metropolitan), room Z214
+31 20 5986715
http://home.fsw.vu.nl/m.buis/
-----------------------------------------
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