Help with*generating a*variable in STATA

[Akanksha Aggarwal]

Hi, I have a dataset which has a variable mother_no that stores the number that represents mother in the household roster. Another set of variables h12_1, h12_2, h12_3......etc represent the age of the household member 1, 2 and 3 respectively. I want to now create a variable mother_age that stores the mother's age.

mother_no	h12_1	h12_2	h12_3	h12_4	h12_5	mother_age
3	23	34	23	54	56	23
1	24	54	43	76	23	24
3	54	73	35	38	49	73
4	12	13	46	37	42	37
5	52	73	74	24	14	14

The above table shows an example. For the first row, since mother_no takes a value 3, mother_age stores the value of h12_3.

How do I create the variable mother_age for my data. Thanks.

[Nick Cox]

Please note https://www.statalist.org/forums/help#stata and https://www.statalist.org/forums/help#spelling

* Example generated by -dataex-. For more info, type help dataex
clear
input byte(mother_no h12_1 h12_2 h12_3 h12_4 h12_5 mother_age)
3 23 34 23 54 56 23
1 24 54 43 76 23 24
3 54 73 35 38 49 73
4 12 13 46 37 42 37
5 52 73 74 24 14 14
end

gen wanted = . 

forval j = 1/5 {
    replace wanted = h12_`j' if mother_no == `j'
}