Questions on finding the lowest value amongst different variables

[Eunhye Kang]

Dear all,

First of all, Happy New Year!


I have a question on generating a variable that gives a value that is lowest amongst several variables.

So I have a couple data and need to create a variable that shows the youngest age of children.

The age of children is coded as "age_household member1", "age_household member2", "age_household member3"...

For example, if a father has three children, then their ages are coded like this:
"age_household member1" = 10
"age_household member2" = 12
"age_household member3" = 14

With these information, I need to generate a "youngest age of child" variable. In that case, the value of this variable would be 10.
It takes lots of steps to generate this variable with the codes I know. I would like to ask you if you know a simpler and better way to generate this variable.


Thank you very much in advance for your assistance..!

[Felix Bittmann]

egen minage = rowmin(age_household_member1 age_household_member2 age_household_member3)

[Nick Cox]

Felix Bittmann gave excellent advice. Note that the function

min()

offers another approach.

Details:

gen wanted = min(age_household member1, age_household member2, age_household member3)