How to Program A “Loop” with Stata.doc

How to Program A “Loop” with Stata When you have a repetitive task, using a loop helps cut down on your programming work and helps you avoid programming errors. You’ll get an introduction to loops in Lecture 6. This handout goes into a bit more detail, providing examples of using loops for creating new variables, cleaning variables and analyzing variables. Basic concept When you program a loop, you have to tell Stata 3 basic things: What you want to do repetitively How many times you want to do it What changes each time Here’s an example of a basic loop (you can paste this into a do file and run it): forvalues x = 1/5 { display `x + 1 = display `x + 1 display } Regarding the basic tasks above: All the commands between { and } are the commands done repetitively The forvalues command tells Stata you want to do the loop 5 times, one for each value between 1 and 5, inclusive The forvalues command also designates “x” as the placeholder for the thing that will change, and then anywhere that `x appears in the commands in the brackets, Stata substitutes the actual value (1, 2, 3, 4 or 5) corresponding with that run of the loop. Other important quirks and notes about the syntax: The open brace must appear on the same line as foreach Nothing may follow the open brace except comments; the first command to be executed must appear on a new line The “ ` ” symbol is the quote right below the ~ on your keyboard and the “ ” symbol is the quote below the “ on your keyboard. The close brace must appear on a line by itself For more advice about using forvalues, and also foreach (another way of setting up a loop when you have a list of things you want to loop through instead of a set of numbers), look up forvalues and foreach in Stata’s help menu. A couple of quick notes on forvalues: You can specify min/max to indicate a sequence of numbers. For example 1/3 yields 1, 2 and 3 You can specify first(step)last to indicate a sequence that skips numbers. For example 15(5)50 yield