Code debug creation of conditional variable

[Sebastien Dubois]

Hello,

I have written the following code in Stata and I get a r(32) error (too many parentheses). I don't understand why, as I should need 9 closing parentheses as I have nine conditions?
Thanks much for your help

foreach year of local years {
generate state`year' = cond((poste`year' == "assistant" & rang`year' == "R1"), "state1", ///
cond((poste`year' == "assistant" & rang`year' == "R2"), "state2", ///
cond((poste‘year’ == “assistant” & rang‘year’ == “R3”), “state3” ///
cond((poste`year' == "associé" & rang`year' == "R1"), "state4", ///
cond((poste`year' == "associé" & rang`year' == "R2"), "state5", ///
cond((poste`year' == "associé" & rang`year' == "R3"), "state6", ///
cond((poste`year’ == "full" & rang`year' == "R1"), "state7", ///
cond((poste‘year’ == "full" & rang`year' == "R2"), "state8", ///
cond((poste`year' == "full" & rang`year' == "R3"), "state9", ///
"", "")))))))))
}

[Nick Cox]

The punctuation is wrong in so far as

rang‘year’ == "R3"

should be

rang`year' == "R3"

and

poste‘year’ == "assistant"

should be

poste`year' == "assistant"

Watch for other similar slips. The punctuation around a local macro reference should be

` '

and that around a literal string should be

""

That said, I believe that the inside of the loop might be reduced to

egen work  = group(poste`year' rang`year')
gen state`year' = "state" + strofreal(work)
drop work

without or at worst with a qualifier

if inlist(poste`year', "assistant", "associé", "full")  & inlist(rang`year',  "R1", "R2", "R3")

[Sebastien Dubois]

Thanks much Nick. I have a state in my dataset but it does not loop.It works till the last line of code (if inlist etc.): I get a warning "ambiguous abbreviation" (r111), I tried to add a * but then get "invalid name" (r198). Thanks again!

[Nick Cox]

The qualifier must appear as a qualifier; it is not a separate command.