Nick,
fair enough, but it should be possible to advise just the way Stata advises
if the change flag for the dataset is 1. Fortunately, it gives a warning as
to the changed nature of the data you are about to destroy and prevents you
from doing stupid things. I remember reading a section in the handbooks
about how Stata is so very careful with commands that may change your data
in undesirable ways. Should the same not happen for -preserve-d data?
Martin Weiss
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-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Nick Cox
Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2008 5:46 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: st: RE: dangerous preserve
I think this is mostly on the level of yes, sharp knives can cut you if
you are not careful.
As I understand it,
preserve
...
save
...
does not rule out a subsequent -restore-.
But otherwise yes, you can get bitten if you forget what you have done.
It would be easy enough to write a command that -save-d while it
-preserve-d, but
you would have to remember to use it. I can't see an advantage in
advising that
over advising the use of -save- before -preserve- when that's a good
idea -- or indeed over recommending -save- and avoiding -preserve- if
you are going to forget what you have done.
Nick
[email protected]
Martin Weiss
I was wondering if anyone apart from me has been bitten by -preserve-? I
recently preserved data, then dropped half my data to carry out some
calculations and later forgot the preserve-status and saved. Now call me
foolish, but in the heat of the action, it is easy to forget about the
status of your data, isn`t it?
So: is there a mechanism to alert me to this danger, and if not, should
there be one?
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