Generating new variable that identifies occurance of multiple integers across variables

[Stacy Rosenbaum]

Hello,

I am trying to figure out how to generate a new variable that will tell me if (e.g.) two values appear in a row, in any two of five different variables. The data are structured like this:

v1 v2 v3 v4 v5
1 . 2 . 3 . 8 . 10

I want to create a new variable where:

0=1 & 2 occur in row
1=only 1 appears in row
2=only 2 appears in row
3=neither 1 nor 2 appear in row

So in my above example, newvar=0.

My assumption was that I would be able to accomplish this using inlist, but it seems like inlist will not work with v* (i.e., it will only let me specify a single variable, not a list of variables). Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thank you! Stacy

[Nick Cox]

Two ways to do it:

* vital that the next two commands do not include equals signs!
local cond2 inlist(2, v1, v2, v3, v4, v5)
local cond1 inlist(1, v1, v2, v3, v4, v5)

gen wanted1 = cond(`cond1' & `cond2', 0, cond(`cond1', 1, cond(`cond2', 2, 3)))

gen wanted2 = 3 - 2 * `cond1' - `cond2'

The help for inlist() is minimal but using several variables together is tacitly allowed. There are further examples at

https://www.stata-journal.com/sjpdf....iclenum=dm0026

and (to the point here)

https://www.stata-journal.com/sjpdf....iclenum=dm0058

[Stacy Rosenbaum]

Worked perfectly--thanks so much Nick!