Loop foreach help

[Eleni Moschou]

Hi everyone. I am trying to fill in missing values in one variable by completing it with values from another one. I am working with observations with often lack the end date, in which case I want to make the end date be the same as the start date. I use this code:

foreach x of end_year {
replace end_year = start_year `x' if missing(end_year`x')
}

and I am getting an error message saying "invalid 'end_year'). Nevertheless, I have triple checked for extra spaces, but this does not seem to be the issue. What could it be? Thank you.

[Eleni Moschou]

. dataex start_year end_year

----------------------- copy starting from the next line -----------------------

* Example generated by -dataex-. To install: ssc install dataex
clear
input float(start_year end_year)
1975    .
1975    .
1975    .
1975    .
1975    .
1975    .
1975    .
1975    .
1975    .
1975    .
1976    .
1976    .
1976    .
1976    .
1976    .
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1977    .
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1979    .
1979    .
1979    .
1979    .
1980    .
1980 1980
1980    .
1980    .
1980    .
1980    .
1980    .
1980    .
1980    .
1980    .
1980    .
1980    .
1980    .
end

------------------ copy up to and including the previous line ------------------

Listed 100 out of 4153 observations
Use the count() option to list more

.

[Øyvind Snilsberg]

no need for looping,

replace end_year = start_year if missing(end_year)

[Eleni Moschou]

Thank you so much that worked!