I often use Eva's method of calling up -ds-. It is convenient, if not
necessarily optimal.
But using -ds- in the first example is unnecessary. Consider
foreach x of varlist * {
capture confirm string variable `x'
if !_rc {
do string things
}
else {
do numeric things
}
}
In the second example, I offer two small tweaks:
1. r(varlist) is already suitable. There is no need to evaluate it, and
some loss in doing so, especially if the variable list is very long.
2. Also, the -varlist- makes Stata do work that it has already done. (It
would go through the elements of the list to see if any were wildcards
and should be expanded, but that is not necessary. The elements are
guaranteed to be individual variable names.)
The loops should thus begin
foreach x in `r(varlist)' {
or
local vlist `r(varlist)'
foreach x of local vlist {
Nick
[email protected]
Eva Poen
Libby,
here are two ways to do it.
1.
qui ds *
foreach x of varlist `=r(varlist)' {
capture confirm string variable `x'
if !_rc {
do string things
}
else {
do numeric things
}
}
2.
qui ds *, has(type string)
foreach x of varlist `=r(varlist)' {
do string things
}
qui ds *, has(type numeric)
foreach x of varlist `=r(varlist)' {
do numeric things
}
2008/3/25, Libby Hemphill <[email protected]>:
> I'm wondering if there's a way to loop through all my variables and
> perform some action only on those that are numeric. Is there a way
to
> check for the type of the variable before doing something? Like
>
> for each variable
> if string, next
> else do X
> end for
*
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