tabm and percentages

[Todd Motiwalla]

Hello,

This is a question that has come up after my last couple posts on the Statalist and is now a question I have more generally because I feel that it may be beneficial in the future as well in addition to my current dilemna.

The general question is; is there a possibility, when using -tabm-, to force Stata to generate percentages in the output table?

For the sake of an example, I have this code to generate results of question responses where it could be a "1" or "2" response:

preserve
keep q10a q10b q10c q10d q10e q10f
findname, all(inlist(@, 1, 2, .))
tabm `r(varlist)'
restore

And it produces this table:

variable	1	2	Total
q10a	101	54	155
q10b	111	20	131
q10c	90	30	120
q10d	150	6	156
q10e	125	26	151
q10f	105	15	120

Is there a way, using -tabm-, to get that table to have the percentage of "1" responses out of the total? So for q10a, the new percentage column would say 65.16%...I do not see any guidance on percentages in the -help tabm- file. And is there a general consensus way to do this with -tabm- generally? Thank you.

[Nick Cox]

I don't think a general consensus, even if it exists, would move anything here. What matters is the code and the help. And "force" a command to do anything? That's too violent for my taste.

The help for tabm tells you that you can specify tabulate_options where

tabulate_options are options allowed with tabulate for two-way or one-way tables.

You don't give a data example we can use, but those options include row and column. in your case.

Please note the permanent request in the FAQ Advice to explain where community-contributed commands you refer to come from. In this case, findname is from the Stata Journal and tabm is from tab_chi (SSC).

[Todd Motiwalla]

Nick Cox Apologies, 'force' may not have been correct word choice! And will remember to explain where the commands come from in the future.


Here is some data, and if I use the command in my original post (which came from guidance of yours on an earlier post) then I can produce a table like the one in the original post.

However this does not show percentages, which I could hand calculate I suppose but would be preferable to figure out a way for Stata to put in table.

* Example generated by -dataex-. To install: ssc install dataex
clear
input byte(Q35A Q35B Q35C Q35D Q35E)
4 4 4 4 4
4 4 3 3 4
1 1 1 1 3
1 1 2 1 4
3 4 3 3 3
1 1 1 2 2
1 4 1 2 1
4 2 3 3 2
2 3 4 2 4
3 2 1 2 2
3 4 2 3 2
2 1 2 3 4
1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1
. . . . .
3 2 2 1 2
3 3 4 3 3
1 1 5 2 4
2 3 2 2 2
3 2 4 2 1
4 3 3 4 3
1 1 1 3 3
1 1 1 1 1
3 4 1 1 1
2 2 3 4 4
5 4 3 2 3
2 2 5 2 5
1 1 2 2 1
3 3 2 4 3
1 1 1 1 2
1 1 1 1 4
1 2 2 2 2
1 2 2 2 2
5 1 1 1 2
2 4 2 4 3
2 3 1 2 3
4 3 1 2 3
1 1 1 1 2
5 1 1 1 1
2 3 2 4 2
1 3 1 2 3
1 1 4 3 4
1 1 1 2 4
4 3 4 3 4
2 1 3 2 1
3 4 2 3 3
1 1 1 1 4
1 1 1 1 3
1 1 3 3 2
2 1 3 3 2
3 2 4 3 2
4 4 3 4 2
3 2 4 3 1
1 1 1 1 1
2 2 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 4
2 3 4 3 2
1 3 2 1 4
3 4 1 2 3
1 1 5 4 4
4 3 2 4 4
2 3 4 3 3
2 3 4 3 4
3 1 2 1 2
2 2 2 4 5
1 1 1 2 2
3 2 2 4 3
3 4 4 3 4
2 2 3 3 2
4 4 3 4 4
1 3 1 2 3
4 3 4 4 4
4 3 4 4 4
1 1 3 4 3
3 2 2 1 2
1 1 1 2 .
1 1 1 2 1
1 1 2 3 2
3 1 4 1 1
2 1 1 2 2
3 2 3 4 3
1 1 1 1 2
4 3 2 3 4
1 1 1 2 4
3 2 3 2 1
3 2 4 3 2
3 2 4 3 2
3 2 3 4 3
2 1 3 2 4
3 2 2 4 2
4 4 4 4 4
2 2 2 2 4
3 4 3 4 5
1 1 2 1 2
1 2 1 2 2
1 3 1 1 4
4 3 3 4 3
3 4 2 3 2
5 4 2 3 4
2 2 2 2 2
end