merging panel data - merge or joinby?

[Mike Tanner]

hello! I am looking to merge two datasets to end with coherent district-level daily dataset from 2009-2013 with temperature, rainfall, and total rainfall variables.

- the first dataset "finalrainfall" has the following shape

Year Edate District_id State_name District_name dailymeanrainfall dailytotalrainfall

- the second dataset "finaltemp" has the following shape

Year Edate District_id State_name District_name Weightedavertemp

I initially tried using the merge command, but I got the error message given that there variables I used werent unique identifiers (merge 1:1 district_id year using "finalrainfall"

I have tried using also joinby - joinby district_id year using "finalrainfall" -

are the results given in this case by joinby equivalet to what merge would have provided?

[Carlo Lazzaro]

Mike:
as we do not know your datasets, it is difficul to check whether you got waht you expected with -joinby-.
That said, a temptative hint would be to give -merge- one more try with the most comprehensive set of key variables which are common to both datasets:

merge 1:1 Year Edate District_id State_name District_name

and see what happens.

As an aside, whenever it comes to -append-, -merge- and -joinby- storing a copy of the original datasets is highly advisable.

[Mike Tanner]

Mike:
as we do not know your datasets, it is difficul to check whether you got waht you expected with -joinby-.
That said, a temptative hint would be to give -merge- one more try with the most comprehensive set of key variables which are common to both datasets:

merge 1:1 Year Edate District_id State_name District_name

and see what happens.

As an aside, whenever it comes to -append-, -merge- and -joinby- storing a copy of the original datasets is highly advisable.

Thank you very much Carlo,

I used the merge 1:1 option with the variables you stated and I indeed got it to work, with the difference that it now included data that was being removed before (unmatched tem/raionfall data)

[Carlo Lazzaro]

Mike:
-merge- outcome comes with a -_merge- indicator that can give you some further details about what went right/wrong with your -merge- procedure.