Using min and max values for calculations

[Maroun Mezher]

sortorder	name	cum_pct	delta
1	Bob	0.2	0.4
2	Alice	0.5	0.1
3	Eugene	0.58	0.02
4	Theresa	0.7	0.1
5	Thomas	1	0.3

Hello,

I have a cumulative percentage variable like the one below, and I want to figure out which observation is the closest to an arbitrary threshold, say 60%. I used the following line:

bysort sortorder: gen delta = min(abs(cum_pct - 0.6), cum_pct)

I was able to get the absolute value distance between each observation and my threshold. However, I can not figure out how to return the name/sort order number associated with the smallest delta, so I can use it as a parameter in another function I am using. Is there a way do this in stata?

Thanks!

[Hemanshu Kumar]

You could do

sort delta
local min_sortorder = sortorder[1]

and let's just hope you don't have and/or don't care about ties in the minimum delta value.