Variable order loop

[Jenn OKeeffe]

Hi all, I have a data set with 280 variables. All but ~35 of them are repeats of question of variables ordered by event. The event is numbered (event1, event2, event3 etc.) but the questions are not (for example event1QX, event1QY, ....event2QX,event2QY, etc.). I'd like to create a loop to reorder the variables first in order of the event (so all questions for event1 are first) and then in a specific order for the questions since the questions aren't actually numbered. So there will be two levels of ordering. I've tried creating a looping for this but the foreach command is looping over the sequence order so that I get event1QX event2QX.......event1QY event2QY and vice versa.

ds event1QX-event25QZ
local event "`rvarlist'"
order `event', seq
foreach var of local event {
order event*QX event*QY event*QZ event*QA event*QB
}

[Lance Erickson]

What about something like this...

clear
set obs 1
foreach l in X A Z B Y {
    foreach n in 3 6 2 1 4 5 {
        gen event`n'Q`l'=.
    }
}
drop event2QY


foreach n in 6 5 4 3 2 1 {
    foreach l in B A Z Y X  {
        capture order event`n'Q`l'
    }
}

Because of the way -order- works, you can loop backwards through the event numbers and then backwards through the questions. The -capture- before -order- is necessary if there are some questions that weren't asked for some events.

Lance

[Nick Cox]

I wouldn't order again and again. I would separate this into getting the variable names in the right order first and then issuing order just once.

Sample code is therefore a twist on Lance's:

local neworder 

forval j = 1/25 { 
    local neworder `neworder' event`j' event`j'QX event`j'QY event`j'QZ event `j'QA event`j'QB 
}

order `neworder'

[Jenn OKeeffe]

I couldn't get that code to work but I found it in another posting after a day of searching. See link below. Appreciate the help.

*Nick I saw your post late, but that works too. Its a different take on using forval to specify the order which worked in both codes. Thanks!