Stata Technical Bulletin
STB-33
an62 Stata 5.0
Stata Corp., FAX 1-409-696-4601, [email protected]
Stata 5.0 is now shipping. You should have already received information from us on the upgrade but, if not, call or fax
us, or email [email protected] and we will send the information to you. Stata 5.0 has many new statistical features that the user
community has requested.
The new release is an opportune time to ask the readers of the STB to contribute suggestions for the next version of Stata.
As we are under continual development, your requests strongly affect what new commands and features receive the attention of
the technical staff. Feel free to send in your suggestions to the Technical Support staff at their email address [email protected].
Note that there are no official updates in this issue, because Stata 5.0 has just been announced and no updates have
accumulated yet. Starting with the next issue of the STB, the stata directory will contain official updates for Stata 5.0. Do
not install these updates if you have not upgraded. Also notice that the directory name that we use for the official updates has
changed from the old crc name.
an63 Updates available on the Stata web site
Stata Corp., FAX 1-409-696-4601, [email protected]
A new service provided by Stata Corporation in conjunction with the release of version 5.0 is the Updates page on our web
site: http://www.stata.com. In the past, when we wanted to add functionality to the Stata executable, we were forced to wait for
a new release in order to create new diskettes. With this service, we are pleased to be able to offer more immediate responses
to these needs.
From our home page, click first on User Support and then on Updates. From this page, you can click on the appropriate
operating system. We recommend that you check this page periodically to see if the executable has been updated. If it has, you
may download the new executable by clicking on the appropriate file. Detailed instructions are available on the web page.
sed10.1 Updatetopattern
Richard Goldstein, Qualitas, Inc., [email protected]
One option, detail, has been added to the program (which was introduced as sed10 in STB-32). The new syntax is
pattern varlist [if exp [in range] [, detail ]
Use of the detail option provides a list giving the number of missing values for each variable:
. pattern make-rep7S, detail
0 missing values for variable make
0 missing values for variable price
0 missing values for variable mpg
5 missing values for variable rep7S
COUNT PCT PATTERN
1. 5 6.76 XXX.
2. 69 93.24 XXXX
Total: 74
This may be useful for (1) reminding you of the order of the variables, and (2) helping decide in what order to impute values.
Imputing the values of variables with fewer missing values first is generally better, though this can be affected by the pattern of
missing values.
Reference
Goldstein, R. 1996. sed2: Patterns of missing data. Stata Technical Bulletin 32: 12-13.