Re: st: use of tempfile

[Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com>]

It sounds as if you have precisely one data file and you want to
restructure it. The word description "break the data around this
variable state_code" could mean all sorts of different things.

I suspect that you are reinventing -reshape-. That's just a guess.

What is most obviously missing here is a concrete description of the
underlying problem, i.e. a miniature example of the data you have
_and_ a miniature example of the data structure you want. If you do
that, then more experienced users have a better chance of seeing
immediately that you need -reshape-, or -separate-, or you really do
need to do something ad hoc with multiple -save-s and -merge-s.

The fact that you are using -tempfile-seems incidental.

Nick

On Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 7:38 AM, Prakash Singh <prakashbhu@gmail.com> wrote:

> I have a stata data for reason I need to break the data around this
> variable state_code and re merge it according to my requirement. I
> have written this code but the data I am getting finally after merging
> has variable for last state only. Important issue is I want the final
> remerged data but not the individual state data in addition.
>
> Any suggestion to improve my code.
>
> tempfile mydata
> use "sales.dta", clear
> local vars "state_code exp_val sales_val"
> levelsof state_code, local(state)
> foreach s of local state {
>  preserve
>  keep if state_code==`i'
>  foreach var of varlist `vars' {
>    ren `var' `var'_`i'
>  }
>  sort common_id
>  save `mydata', replace
>  restore
>  }
>  contract common_id
>  drop _freq
>  foreach s of local state {
>   merge common_id using `mydata'
>   drop _merge
>   sort common_id
>  }
> save "sales_1.dta",replace
> }

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