reshape gives unexpected output

[Inaamul Haq]

Dear Statalist members. I have this small dataset in wide form which I want to change to the long form. Here is the data in wide form.

* Example generated by -dataex-. For more info, type help dataex
clear
input byte(g0 g1 g2 g3) float id
4 1 2 1  1
3 1 2 4  2
2 1 3 1  3
4 2 3 2  4
4 1 3 2  5
3 2 3 2  6
4 3 2 3  7
4 1 2 3  8
4 1 3 2  9
4 1 2 2 10
3 1 2 1 11
4 2 3 2 12
3 2 4 1 13
4 1 4 2 14
end

When I try to change the data to a long form

reshape long g, i(id) j(score)

I get this data

* Example generated by -dataex-. For more info, type help dataex
clear
input float id byte(score g)
 1 1 4
 1 2 1
 1 3 2
 1 4 1
 2 1 3
 2 2 1
 2 3 2
 2 4 4
 3 1 2
 3 2 1
 3 3 3
 3 4 1
 4 1 4
 4 2 2
 4 3 3
 4 4 2
 5 1 4
 5 2 1
 5 3 3
 5 4 2
 6 1 3
 6 2 2
 6 3 3
 6 4 2
 7 1 4
 7 2 3
 7 3 2
 7 4 3
 8 1 4
 8 2 1
 8 3 2
 8 4 3
 9 1 4
 9 2 1
 9 3 3
 9 4 2
10 1 4
10 2 1
10 3 2
10 4 2
11 1 3
11 2 1
11 3 2
11 4 1
12 1 4
12 2 2
12 3 3
12 4 2
13 1 3
13 2 2
13 3 4
13 4 1
14 1 4
14 2 1
14 3 4
14 4 2
end

I expect the data to contain 14 observations each from g1 g2 g3 and g4. Instead, this is the result from

tab g

used on the long data.

---

g | Freq. Percent Cum.
------------+-----------------------------------
1 | 13 23.21 23.21
2 | 18 32.14 55.36
3 | 13 23.21 78.57
4 | 12 21.43 100.00
------------+-----------------------------------
Total | 56 100.00

---

I can see I am doing something wrong. But I can't figure out what.
Kindly help.

[Rich Goldstein]

it is your expectation that is incorrect here - you get, as expected 4*14=56 observations and there are 14 observations for each of the 4 scores; however, the distribution of "g" depends on your data, not on the command, and what you get is what you should get for that data sample; note, for example, in your dataex example that there are multiple occurrences of various values; e.g., for the last. observations there are 2 occurrences of "4"

[Inaamul Haq]

Thank you very much Rich Goldstein
I get it now. My expectation really was wrong.