Re: st: Creating new variables from a STATA panel dataset

[Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com>]

* cannot be part of a variable name.

Nick

On 3 Aug 2011, at 17:14, Lucio Vinhas de Souza <lvdesouza@yahoo.com>  
wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> Very basic question, for someone that has not used STATA for several  
> years now: I have a panel dataset (adequately tis t and iis id) of  
> several hundred variables, and I want to:
>
> a)    Generate new variables
> b)    Run a xtbond from those new variables
>
> I have been trying to generate new variables which are change rates  
> form the existing ones. The names of the existing variables are all  
> variations from the format “countrycode_extension”. I have been  
> trying to
>
> gen “*_extension_new”= 
> ((“*_extension”-“*_extension_new”[_n-1])/  
> “*_extension_new”[_n-1])
>
> and always get the message
>
> *invalid name

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