How to avoid scientific notation when displaying values

[Paula de Souza Leao Spinola]

I would like to know the total number of non-missing observations as well as the number of distinct values for each variable below. How can I avoid scientific notation when doing so?

. distinct n_aih cnes mun_cnes proc proc_sol cid_pri cid_sec cid_asso cid_morte

           |        Observations
           |      total   distinct
-----------+----------------------
     n_aih |   1.01e+08   1.01e+08
      cnes |   1.01e+08       6045
  mun_cnes |   1.01e+08       3574
      proc |   1.01e+08       1877
  proc_sol |   1.01e+08       1882
   cid_pri |   1.01e+08       1998
   cid_sec |   1.05e+07       2040
  cid_asso |     868589       1980
 cid_morte |    2852869       1893

. 
end of do-file

.

[William Lisowski]

Unless Nick Cox (the author of the distinct command available from the Stata Journal as package dm0042_1) can suggest an alterenative, I think you're going to have to edit the distinct.ado flie, first dropping any current copy in memory so that the next time you run the command a new copy will be loaded from the edited file.

program drop distinct
doedit `"`c(sysdir_plus)'/d/distinct.ado"'

will open distinct.ado in a Do-file Editor window. Scroll down to

                " {c |}  " as res %9.0g r(N) "  " %9.0g r(sum)

and replace the two formats %9.0g with something like %16.0fc and then save the edited do-file.

[Nick Cox]

Paula is missing the need to explain where community-contributed commands come from (FAQ Advice #`12). It seems that she is using an out-of-date version of distinct (written by Gary Longton and myself).

As a twist on @William Lisowski's point, check out the latest version first: :

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