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

[Bert Jung <bjung59@gmail.com>]

Thanks all for these helpful insights.  I wanted to share my solution
which, if clumsy, works for me.  The basic idea is to check whether a
particular variable is part of the continuous or binary varlist and
then proceed as appropriate.

This approach keeps intact the order specified in varlist.  I am
collecting estimation output and wanted the order to remain as
specified by the user.

This is just a minimum working example, obviously various checks and
balances are of order.

Cheers Bert



cap program drop varcheck
program varcheck, nclass

	syntax varlist, contvars(varlist) binaryvars(varlist)

	* Loop over all variables in varlist; this approach keeps the order
in -varlist- intact
	foreach v of local varlist {

		* (a) Is variable part of the variables specified in "contvars"?
		local contvar: list v in contvars	
	
		if `contvar'==1 {
			di "`v' is specified as continuous variable"
		}

		
		* (b) Is variable part of the variables specified in "binaryvars"?
		local propvar: list v in binaryvars
		
		if `propvar'==1 {
			di "`v' specified as binary variable"		
		}
	}
	
end


sysuse auto, clear

varcheck mpg price foreign weight, contvars(mpg price weight)
binaryvars(foreign)















On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 7:40 AM, Alexander Jais <jais@win.rwth-aachen.de> wrote:
> Sorry, stimmt ist bei mir noch als to do - kommt die Woche.
>
> Bist wieder aus INdien zurück - wie wars?
>
> LG
> Alex
>
> On 03/16/12, 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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>> *   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
>
> *
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*
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