probelm with using generate by after sorting in descending order

[Isabel Lechner]

Dear Stata Users,

I run the following 2 commands:

gsort var1 var2 -var3
by var1 var2 -var3: gen n=_n

Now stata tells me that the data are not sorted so I can't generate _n (I guess it doesn't get the minus of the gsort command before).
My question is now wheter there still is a possibility to generate _n with var3 beeing sorted in descending order? (so var3 descending while n ascending)

Thank you!

[Svend Juul]

gsort does not tell Stat that data are sorted, so you must, for example:

gen var_3 = -var3
bysort var1 var2 var_3: gen n=_n

[Svend Juul]

gsort does not tell Stat that data are sorted, so you must, for example:

gen var_3 = -var3
bysort var1 var2 var_3: gen n=_n

or you could:

bysort var1 var2 var3: gen n=_n
gsort var1 var2 -var3

[Isabel Lechner]

Thank you for your answer, exactly what I was looking for!