Stata for loop error

[Santhosh JGU]

Hi,

I am trying to run the below loop in stata. But i get an error.

Can someone help me. I am a beginner in using Stata.

The variables fyear, B031, B031_av are already defined and available in the dateset.


forvalues fyear = 2005 / 2022 {
2. local count=0
3. foreach l of local levels {
4.
. count=count+1
5.
. local B031_sum=sum(B031) if loc == 'l'
6. B031_av = B031_sum/count
7. }
8.
. }
=exp not allowed

Many thanks in advance.

[Bruce Weaver]

Perhaps you intended B031_av = B031_sum/count to be replace B031_av = B031_sum/count?

[Santhosh JGU]

No that didnt help. Still have the error.

[Clyde Schechter]

-count = count + 1- is not legal Stata syntax. To increment the value of the local macro count you would write

local count = count + 1

// OR

local ++count

On top of that, you are referencing another local macro, levels, which you have not defined.

local B031_sum=sum(B031) if loc == 'l'

has three problems. First it isn't clear what loc is: it isn't defined anywhere in the code. But in any case, you can't have an -if- clause in a local macro declaration. -if- clauses restrict the set of observations which the command applies to. But defining a local doesn't apply to any observations in the data set.

I'm also guessing that local B031_sum = sum(B031) doesn't do what you think it does. Because defining local macros is not an operation carried out on the data set, mentioning a variable by name is interpreted to refer just to the value of the first observation of that variable. So local B031_sum will be set to the value of the B031 in the first observation. As it isn't obvious to me what you actually want local B031_sum to be, I can't offer you alternate code.

Finally there is the error in -B031_av = B031_sum/count- which was already pointed out in #2.

[Nick Cox]

@Clyde Schecher makes several good points as usual. BTW, he meant

 local count = `count' + 1

not

local count = count + 1