Re: st: Making a local with no assigned value zero

[Nick Winter <nwinter@virginia.edu>]

I've seen things like the following in Stata ado code:

local x1 = `x1' + 0`y1'

Then when `y1' is empty, that becomes

local x1 = `x1' + 0

and when it's not, a zero is prepended to the value of y1, which is 
always the same as y1.

- Nick Winter


George Chioran wrote:
> Dear statalisters, 
>  
> My code goes like
> this: local x1 = `x1’ + `y1’. I get the `y1’ variable through repeated loops
> and sometimes `y1’ is not assigned any value. 
> When `y1’ does not
> have any value, the line local x1 = `x1’ + `y1’ stops my program and I get an invalid
> syntax error. 
>  
> My question is: Could
> I somehow make the local `y1’ to be equal to zero, or not to be taken into
> consideration in my sum in case `y1’ is not assigned any value? 
>  
> Thank you, 
> George
>
>
>       
>
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