Achieving different results when trying to recreate stata lesson

[Susie Sonnenschein]

Hello, I am just starting to learn the stata software and I am trying to work through the stata lessons.
I am typing exactly what is written in the lesson - but I receive totally different results.

I type:

clear
set seed 100
set obs 10
generate famid = int(runiform()*4)
generate age = int(runiform()*10)
list

and I receive this:

+-------------+
| famid age |
|-------------|
1. | 3 9 |
2. | 1 1 |
3. | 3 5 |
4. | 0 4 |
5. | 3 5 |
6. | 1 6 |
7. | 3 1 |
8. | 2 2 |
9. | 3 8 |
10. | 3 0 |
+-------------+

instead I should receive this:

+-------------+
| famid age |
|-------------|
1. | 2 3 |
2. | 0 5 |
3. | 3 0 |
4. | 0 2 |
5. | 0 6 |
6. | 2 1 |
7. | 1 6 |
8. | 0 1 |
9. | 1 4 |
10. | 2 0 |
+-------------+

What am I doing wrong? I can not continue with the example if I generate these different results.

Thanks for you help - I really appreciate it!

[Nick Cox]

My guess is that you are using a different random number generator from that used to create the results.

See e.g.

help set rng

for much more.

The example is out-of-date for other reasons. In any recent Stata it would be better to use runiformint().

[daniel klein]

To rephrase Nick's answer: the "lesson", i.e., the example code was probably created in an earlier version of Stata. Back then, Stata produced different random numbers.

My advice for a beginner is this: do not bother understanding issues related to random number generators quite yet. Simply type:

version 13 , user

at the top of your do-file. That is, run the code:

version 13 , user // <- new line
clear
set seed 100
set obs 10
generate famid = int(runiform()*4)
generate age = int(runiform()*10)
list

to reproduce the results of this example.

Once you get some basic examples running, you can come back and read more about

help version

and, as Nick has suggested

help set rng