st: How to perfom very simple manipulations in large data sets more efficiently

["Tiago V. Pereira" <tiago.pereira@mbe.bio.br>]

I thank Stas and Nick for their helpful comments on my last query.

All the best

Tiago

--
Dear statalisters,

I have to perform extremely simple tasks, but I am struggling with the low
efficiency of my dummy implementations. Perhaps you might have smarter
ideas.

Here is an example:

Suppose I have two variables, X and Y.

I need to the get value of Y that is associated with the smallest value of X.

What I usually do is:

(1) simple approach 1

*/ ------ start --------
sum X, meanonly
keep if X==r(min)
local my_value = Y[1]
*/ ------ end --------

(2) simple approach 2

*/ ------ start --------
sort X
local my_value = Y[1]
*/ ------ end --------

These approaches are simple, and work very well for small data sets. Now,
I have to repeat that procedure 10k times, for data sets that range from
500k to 1000k observations. Hence, both procedures 1 and 2 become clearly
slow.

If you have any tips, I will be very grateful.

All the best,

Tiago






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