Generating one variable with same suffix

[Mohana Mondal]

Hello,

I am trying to get my results (answer_*) all in one new column. For example, ID==1 is to be assigned the value that is present in answer_1. The variables answer_* has suffix same as the ones under ID that they have to be matched with.
The answer that I should get is the variable All_answer (which I created manually). For example, For ID==1, answer_1==13, so All_answer==13.

* Example generated by -dataex-. To install: ssc install dataex
clear
input float(ID answer_1 answer_2 answer_3 All_answer)
1  . 11  . 13
2 13  .  . 11
3  .  . 12 12
end

Any help will be appreciated.
Thank you,
Mohana

[Andrew Musau]

If you have correspondence between your ID variable and answer_# as in your example, then you can do the following. This assumes that each variable has one unique value, otherwise you need to define a rule.

* Example generated by -dataex-. To install: ssc install dataex
clear
input float(ID answer_1 answer_2 answer_3 All_answer)
3  .  . 12 12
2 13  .  . 11
1  . 11  . 13
end

gen wanted=.
qui sum ID
local N= r(N)
forval i=1/`N'{
      sort answer_`i'
      replace wanted= answer_`i'[1] if ID== `i'
 }

Res.:

. l

     +---------------------------------------------------------+
     | ID   answer_1   answer_2   answer_3   All_an~r   wanted |
     |---------------------------------------------------------|
  1. |  3          .          .         12         12       12 |
  2. |  2         13          .          .         11       11 |
  3. |  1          .         11          .         13       13 |
     +---------------------------------------------------------+

[Nick Cox]

Also, consider

gen wanted2 = max(answer_1, answer_2, answer_3)

[Mohana Mondal]

Thank you so much!