I think you want to get -sortrow- (type 'search sortrows');
once you create sorted rows, then it is easy:
sortrow f1-f10, gen(sf)
gen tmp=0           /* assuming no friends are zeroes... */
gen flag=0
forv f=1/10 {
    replace flag=1 if sf`f'==tmp
    replace tmp=nf`f' if sf`f'>tmp&sf`f'<.
}
every obs with two same values in a row gets -flag-ged.
hth,
Jeph
Carter Rees wrote:
Statalist,
I have a data set in which the unit of analysis is the survey respondent.
Each respondent was asked to nominate up to ten friends and enter a
unique
id for those friends in the variables friend1-friend10.  What I would
like
to do is run a search through friend1-10 for each respondent to
identify if
the respondent nominated any of the friends more than once by
mistake.  If
they did I would like to be able to create a variable(s) which let me
know
the id of the duplicated friend.
Aid   f1    f2    f3    f4    f5    f6    f7    f8   f9    f10
22    12    23    23    44    .    .    .    .    .
.
33    33    67    90    .    78    99    .    .    .
.
44    56    89    90    88    .    .    .    .    .
.
55    34    35    35    .    34    67    89    90    77
66
Cheers,
Carter
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