Re: st: Confirming whether a variable is binary or continuous

["Dimitriy V. Masterov" <dvmaster@gmail.com>]

Bert,

tab saves the number of rows behind in r(r). You could create an
if-else loop where you do the prtest if r(r)==2 and ttest when not.

Probably not the most elegant way to do this.

DVM

On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 5:18 PM, Bert Jung <bjung59@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Statalisters,
>
> I am writing a short program to make a balance table that compares
> covariates across a treatment and control group.  I am looking for a
> way to confirm whether a variable is binary in order to use -prtest-
> for proportions rather than -ttest- for continous variables.
>
> One option is to check the actual data values and do -prtest- if there
> are only 0's and 1's.  But a continuous but rare outcome could
> accidentally also take these values, e.g. the number of
> hospitalizations in the past 3 months.
>
> Is there a safer way to confirm that a variable is binary?
>
> Thanks for any pointers,
> Bert
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