option mineigen() not allowed

[Jaime Suarez]

Hello Stata community, very new user trying to follow a youtube video to run a pca

I'm able to run a pca and get the screeplot with the following code:

pca sharksinterested ent_chaos ent_community ent_conscientiousness ent_empathy ent_entrepreneurship ent_failure ent_innovation ent_integrity ent_isolation ent_judgment ent_opportunity ent_optimism ent_order ent_pessimism ent_progress ent_retreat ent_risk ent_sensemaking ent_success ent_transformation ent_uncertainty ent_warmth ent_zeal

screeplot, yline(1)

My next step is keeping the Comp with eigen values above 1, a total of 9. I've tried both

pca $xlist, mineigen(1)
&
pca $xlist, components(9)

Both times I get option mineigen() not allowed or option components() not allowed

Thanks for the help

[Jared Greathouse]

Did you define your global macro xlist?


I wouldn't use a global macro for this by the way.

[Nick Cox]

What version of Stata are you using? I guess the video assumes access to a recent version of Stata.

[Jaime Suarez]

Jared Greathouse I was not aware I was using a macro

Nick Cox I'm using Stata 17 BE.

[Jared Greathouse]

The dollar sign means a global macro

gl mymacro aterm

di "$mymacro"

So, if you didn't define the macro as I did on line 1 above, it is likely the case the PCA throws an error.

[Nick Cox]

Jared Greathouse is right. If you didn't define the global macro xlist anywhere then Stata sees

pca, mineigen(1)

Now pca without a variable list is legal -- it would just replay the last set of results if visible -- except that the options you specified aren't allowed in that case.

mineigen(1) for example is only allowed with a variable list.

So you need to define that global or just supply pca with your variable list.

[Jaime Suarez]

Thank you for your help. By learning about macros I also noticed some errors in my data set. It's all working great.

This is a great community

[Nick Cox]

Pleased you're pleased. People can make very different inferences from very small samples. See for example

https://www.econjobrumors.com/topic/...have-ever-seen