New version of dstat available on SSC

[Ben Jann]

A new version of dstat is available. For installation, type:

. ssc install dstat, replace

dstat is a very general command for the estimation of a wide variety of summary statistics and distribution functions. For a list of changes since the last update see changes after 07nov2025 on https://github.com/benjann/dstat/. Some new features are as follows.

• dstat summarize now has an at() option to compute conditional statistics.

. sysuse nlsw88, clear
(NLSW, 1988 extract)

. dstat summarize (mean median) wage, at(grade=10/18)

Conditional statistics            Number of obs   =      2,244
                                  Condition       =      grade

--------------------------------------------------------------
        wage | Coefficient  Std. err.     [95% conf. interval]
-------------+------------------------------------------------
mean         |
          10 |   4.692721   .2402356      4.221614    5.163829
          11 |   5.688235   .3512727      4.999382    6.377089
          12 |   6.638048   .1593726      6.325515    6.950581
          13 |   8.315217   .4910102      7.352335    9.278099
          14 |   9.130599   .4990696      8.151912    10.10929
          15 |    9.88578   .6455681      8.619806    11.15175
          16 |   9.806044   .4052976      9.011246    10.60084
          17 |   10.43081   .4875015      9.474806    11.38681
          18 |   11.60784     .50493      10.61766    12.59802
-------------+------------------------------------------------
median       |
          10 |   4.203828   .2676516      3.678957    4.728698
          11 |   5.032206    .230795      4.579612      5.4848
          12 |   5.507244   .1082474      5.294968    5.719519
          13 |   6.843801   .3397835      6.177478    7.510123
          14 |   7.745568    .354447      7.050489    8.440646
          15 |   8.904991   .3692172      8.180948    9.629034
          16 |   8.542671   .3745201      7.808229    9.277113
          17 |   10.06441   .4661785      9.150227     10.9786
          18 |   10.59178   .3289128      9.946779    11.23679
--------------------------------------------------------------

• twoway dstat now supports dstat summarize if the at() option is specified.

. twoway dstat summarize (mean median) wage, at(grade=10/18) over(union)

• A new order() option can be used to change how results are arranged. For example, by default, dstat summarize groups results by variables. Type order(statistics) to group results by statistics.

. dstat summarize (mean median) wage tenure

Summary statistics                Number of obs   =      2,231

--------------------------------------------------------------
             | Coefficient  Std. err.     [95% conf. interval]
-------------+------------------------------------------------
wage         |
        mean |   7.792448   .1220428      7.553118    8.031777
      median |   6.280193   .0977002        6.0886    6.471786
-------------+------------------------------------------------
tenure       |
        mean |    5.97785   .1166616      5.749073    6.206627
      median |   3.833333   .1224775      3.593151    4.073515
--------------------------------------------------------------

. dstat summarize (mean median) wage tenure, order(statistics)

Summary statistics                Number of obs   =      2,231

--------------------------------------------------------------
             | Coefficient  Std. err.     [95% conf. interval]
-------------+------------------------------------------------
mean         |
        wage |   7.792448   .1220428      7.553118    8.031777
      tenure |    5.97785   .1166616      5.749073    6.206627
-------------+------------------------------------------------
median       |
        wage |   6.280193   .0977002        6.0886    6.471786
      tenure |   3.833333   .1224775      3.593151    4.073515
--------------------------------------------------------------

• Option qdef() supports additional quantile estimation methods, and the methods (17 in total) can now be selected by keywords.

ben

[Ben Jann]

Yet another update is now available. I added support for (diverging) stacked bar charts:

. webuse nhanes2f, clear

. separate health, by(sex)

. dstat proportion health?, over(agegrp) percent nocasewise

. dstat graph, stack vertical flip values(5) mlabcolor(black) colors(cet d03, reverse) bylabels("Men" "Women")

. dstat graph, stack diverging merge xline(0) colors(cet d03, reverse) coeflabels(health1 = "Men" health2 = "Women") legend(position(6) rows(1))

ben

[John Mullahy]

Thanks for the update, Ben.

I recently encountered a problem with the previous version of dstat that I'd not yet taken time to troubleshoot. But it appears that the same issue arises when I install the new version you published today.

Can you advise? Thanks.

cap drop _all

ssc install moremata, replace
ssc install dstat, replace

sysuse auto

dstat cdf price

Resulting in

. cap drop _all

.
. ssc install moremata, replace
checking moremata consistency and verifying not already installed...
all files already exist and are up to date.

. ssc install dstat, replace
checking dstat consistency and verifying not already installed...
all files already exist and are up to date.

.
. sysuse auto
(1978 automobile data)

.
. dstat cdf price
moremata version 2.0.6 or newer is required; type ssc install moremata, replace
(error occurred while loading dstat.ado)
r(499);

end of do-file

r(499);

The reason that

all files already exist and are up to date

appears after the

ssc install dstat, replace

command is that I'd already run the update before running the do file that produced this post's results.

I'm running StataNow/SE 18.5 on a Mac running Sonoma 14.6.1.

[Ben Jann]

What happens if you call mm_version()? It should be

. mata: mm_version()
  206

If mm_version() returns error or a different value then something is wrong with your moremata installation. Possibly an old lmoremata.mlib file is lying aroud somewhere along the ado path. Type

. findfile lmoremata.mlib, all

to see all instances of the file and then remove old copies. In any case, restarting Stata is also a good idea.

ben

[Bruce Weaver]

Thanks for the update(s) Ben. The output in #1 and #2 is very nice, IMO. But FYI (and for the benefit of other readers), I just want to document that -adoupdate- failed to update to the most recent version when I tried it just now. I had to follow your advice in #1 to get the most recent version.

. adoupdate dstat, update
note: ado update updates community-contributed files; type update to check for updates to official Stata.

Checking status of specified packages:

  [300] dstat at http://fmwww.bc.edu/repec/bocode/d:
        installed package is up to date

(no packages require updating)

. which dstat
c:\ado\plus\d\dstat.ado
*! version 1.5.6  23jan2026  Ben Jann

. ssc install dstat, replace
checking dstat consistency and verifying not already installed...

the following files will be replaced:
    c:\ado\plus\d\dstat.ado
    c:\ado\plus\d\dstat.sthlp

installing into c:\ado\plus\...
installation complete.

. which dstat
c:\ado\plus\d\dstat.ado
*! version 1.5.7  08feb2026  Ben Jann

[Stephen Jenkins]

I had the same experience as Bruce

[Ben Jann]

I guess there is an issue with the pkg file on SSC. I'll drop Kit a note. ben

[Ben Jann]

According to Kit, all files on SSC are ok. Unclear what that problem is. In any case,

. ssc install dstat, replace

will do the trick.