RE: RE: st: A bug in egen and gen?

[Maarten buis <maartenbuis@yahoo.co.uk>]

--- On Fri, 18/2/11, Liao, Junlin wrote:
> You may have most of the variables in decimal and double
> could very well inflate your dataset to double its size. But
> I doubt the majority of Stata users are not in that camp.

My guess would have been that the majority does have most 
variables as non-integers, but if there is one thing I have
learned from the Statalist is that the way Stata is used and
the kind of problems people run into is far more heterogenous
than I could have ever dreamed of, so I am not willing to 
call this anymore than a guess.

> The -compress- command missing opportunity to reduce double
> to float can be easily demonstrated.
> 
> . set type double
> 
> . clear
> 
> . gen a=4.1

<snip>

If you really believe that your data is so precisely
measured that it needs to be entered as doubles, than
you should not convert double 4.1 to float 4.1; they
are not the same number:

. di %21x 4.1
+1.0666666666666X+002

. di %21x float(4.1)
+1.0666660000000X+002

-- Maarten

--------------------------
Maarten L. Buis
Institut fuer Soziologie
Universitaet Tuebingen
Wilhelmstrasse 36
72074 Tuebingen
Germany

http://www.maartenbuis.nl
--------------------------



      

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