if condition with multiple values+

[Joao Macosso]

I want to create a binary variable which takes a value if a condition is met.

Say I want do the following

 
gen OilExp = 1 if Country isanyoffollowing("Algeria","Bahrain","Iran","Iraq" ,"Kuwait","Oman", "Qatar","Saudi Arabia","Syria","United Arab Emirates")

my command is as below

 
gen OilExp = cond(inlist(Country, "Algeria","Bahrain","Iran","Iraq","Kuwait","Om an", "Qatar","Saudi Arabia","Syria","United Arab Emirates"), 1, 0)

or

 
gen OilExp = 1 if inlist(Country, "Algeria","Bahrain","Iran","Iraq","Kuwait","Om an", "Qatar","Saudi Arabia","Syria","United Arab Emirates")
replace OilExp = 0 if OilExp == .

However, I get the error "expression too long" for both commands

But when I reduce the number of countries in the list it works. Is there a command that would handle this condition when there are many matching criteria?

[Rich Goldstein]

there is no question but here is my guess: inlist, when used with strings, is limited to fewer values than you show; you need to break your command into 2 pieces and place an "or" between them; see

h inlist()

[Clyde Schechter]

And your question is....???

Not knowing what you are asking, I'll just comment on a few things I see:

1. When working with string variables, -inlist()- allows a maximum of 10 arguments. You have 11. So you need to either -encode- the country variable to get a numeric variable, and then use the numeric variable and the corresponding numeric codes in your -inlist()- expression, or, you can break the condition up into two parts:

gen OilExp = cond(inlist(Country, "Algeria","Bahrain","Iran","Iraq","Kuwait") ///
    | inlist(Country, "Oman", "Qatar","Saudi Arabia","Syria","United Arab Emirates"), 1, 0)

2. It is never necessary to code

gen logical_variable = cond(logical_expression, 1, 0)

because you can get the identical result more simply with just

gen logical_variable = logical_expression

Added: Crossed with #2.

[Joro Kolev]

Also the user written

. findit inlist2

can be useful here.