ds vs display loop

[Reese Crispen]

Hello,


Can anyone help me identify why:

foreach var of varlist `contvarlist' {
            di "`var'"
            }

Would produce a shorter variable list than

ds `catvarlist'

If it's helpful, catvarlist is:

   foreach v of var *{
        inspect `v'
        if r(N_unique)<10 {
        local catvarlist `catvarlist' `v'
        }
        }

Additionally, if there's any info I could/should add, please let me know.

Thank you!

-Reese

v14.2

[Nick Cox]

There can't be an answer in general. There are datasets with no continuous variables on this criterion and datasets with no categorical variables. So, the lengths of each list are labile.

Note this way to get variables with at most 9 distinct values

. sysuse auto , clear
(1978 Automobile Data)

. distinct, max(9)

-------------------------------------
              |     total   distinct
--------------+----------------------
        rep78 |        69          5
     headroom |        74          8
      foreign |        74          2
-------------------------------------

where distinct is


SJ-15-3 dm0042_2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Software update for distinct
(help distinct if installed) . . . . . . N. J. Cox and G. M. Longton
Q3/15 SJ 15(3):899
improved table format and display of large numbers of
observations

SJ-12-2 dm0042_1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Software update for distinct
(help distinct if installed) . . . . . . N. J. Cox and G. M. Longton
Q2/12 SJ 12(2):352
options added to restrict output to variables with a minimum
or maximum of distinct values

SJ-8-4 dm0042 . . . . . . . . . . . . Speaking Stata: Distinct observations
(help distinct if installed) . . . . . . N. J. Cox and G. M. Longton
Q4/08 SJ 8(4):557--568
shows how to answer questions about distinct observations
from first principles; provides a convenience command

[daniel klein]

Additionally, if there's any info I could/should add, please let me know.

How about a reproducible example? Showing the actual output, so we can see the claimed differences, would probably help, too.

Best
Daniel