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st: RE: Strange problem with forvalues


From   "Nick Cox" <[email protected]>
To   <[email protected]>
Subject   st: RE: Strange problem with forvalues
Date   Fri, 22 Feb 2008 18:09:57 -0000

What you are observing is nothing to do with -forvalues- as such. It is 
a consequence of your attempt to do decimal arithmetic on a computer
that uses binary. The keyword here is precision. 

. search precision 

points to documentation -- but misses the choicest item of all, namely 

SJ-6-4  pr0025  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Mata matters:
Precision
        . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . W.
Gould
        Q4/06   SJ 6(4):550--560                                 (no
commands)
        looks at programming implications of the floating-point,
        base-2 encoding that modern computers use

I would re-code as follows: 

forvalues j= 1/9{
statsby _b,  by(year) saving(c:\qreg`j'.dta, replace):  qreg y x1 x2 x3
x4,
quantile(.`j')

Note the last detail: 

The loop is over the integers 1 to 9. -qreg- will see in turn 

quantile(.1) 
quantile(.2) 

and so forth. Then everyone and everything should be happy. 

Nick 
[email protected] 


Nuno

I'm having an issue with Stata and a small routine I've written. The
code is
the following:

forvalues j=.1(.1).9{
statsby _b,  by(year) saving(c:\qreg`j'.dta, replace):  qreg y x1 x2 x3
x4,
quantile(`j')
}

The objective run the qreg for the deciles .1-.9 and get save the
coefficient estimates in a file. The problem is that, when Stata reaches
quantile .8 and .9 it seems to assum that j=.7999999999999 or
j=.89999999999. This doesn't happen with the other js.

      command:  qreg y x1 x2 x3 x4, quantile(.7999999999999999)
           by:  year
(note: file c:\qreg.7999999999999999.dta not found)

Statsby groups
----+--- 1 ---+--- 2 ---+--- 3 ---+--- 4 ---+--- 5 
................
(running qreg on estimation sample)

      command:  qreg y x1 x2 x3 x4, quantile(.8999999999999999)
           by:  year
(note: file c:\qreg.8999999999999999.dta not found)

Statsby groups
----+--- 1 ---+--- 2 ---+--- 3 ---+--- 4 ---+--- 5 
................

If I then restart the code with j=.8(.1).9 everyhing runs fine. Any
ideas
for this to happen?

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