Save summaries of variables in macros

[Lucia Goin]

Hello,

I'm wondering if there is a way to save descriptive statistics in a local macro, in one line. I could use sum, detail and then use r(min) r(max), etc, or I could use egen var = min(var2) etc, but I would prefer to do this in one line if possible, because I don't need these variables, and I think keeping track of many tempvars will get messy.

Here's an example of what I'd like to do. Note that this won't run, it's just an example.

file write report "At Six Months, `=mean(incf6) if rain == 1', `=min(incf6) if rain ==1 & incf6 > 0' "

Or, something like:

loc minvar = min(var)

Any ideas? Thanks!

[Nick Cox]

Look at

help summarize

where part of what you want to know is documented, namely what is available immediately after a call to that command. The rest is documented in
http://www.stata.com/manuals14/u18.pdf (see 18.8) as what you can do with such results.

Your example would seem to call for

su incf6 if rain == 1, meanonly
local mean = r(mean)
su incf6 if rain ==1 & incf6 > 0
file write report "At Six Months, `mean', `r(min)'"

which illustrates the two main ideas:

1. Immediately after an r-class (or e-class) command, you can access r-class (or in other cases e-class) results directly.

2. Otherwise you must save such results somewhere for later use, e.g. in a local macro or scalar.

It's often overlooked that many key results are available after summarize, meanonly

I have said nothing here about pushing results through a suitable display format.

See also http://www.stata-journal.com/sjpdf.h...iclenum=pr0053 for a review of basic techniques (or, if you like, a quiz on what you should know: what is your score?)

[Lucia Goin]

Thanks Nick Cox , that is essentially what I have been using up to now (sans meanonly). I was hoping for a way to access summaries directly in-line (without having to specify summarize first), but it isn't a big difference. Thank you for this!

[Nick Cox]

I got the impression that you were dismissing that, but it's the best way to do this unless you want to automate everywhere in Mata.