help misschk: Help for misschk - 2009-12-22

Overview

The command misschk examines patterns of missing data for a set of variables.
pattern of missing data.

Syntax

misschk [varlist]
[if] [in]
[weight]
[,
options]
, [GENerate(string)] /// stub for indicator variables
[dummy] /// dummy indicator variables
[replace] /// replace variables if they exist
[NONUMber] /// . in table for missing, not #
[NOSort] /// Don't sort pattern list
[help] /// explain what is going on
[SPace] /// blank rather than _ if not missing
[EXTmiss] // show extended missing // 1.1.0

extmiss Each type of extended missing values is indicated
with the letter for that missing value (e.g., c for .c). By
default all missing values are treated simply as missing and
indicated by a ..

generate(rootname) is the root for the variables created with
information about missing data. If this option is not used,
temporary variables are created that are deleted when the program is
finsihed. The variables created are:

rootnamen is the number of variables from the variable-list for which
a given observation has missing data. For example, a value of 5 would
mean that that observation had missing data for five of the variables
in the list.

rootnamewhich indicates the pattern of missing values. This is a
string variable with a _ indicating valid data for a variable
and a number indicating missing data for that variable. For
example, _____ __8__ _ is the pattern in which there is no
missing data for the first seven variables in the variablae
list, missing data for the eighth, and no missing data for the
ninth through eleventh variable.

dummy requests that dummy variables be created for each
variable in the variable list. The dummy variable begins with the
stem specified with the gen() options, then adds the name of the
variable. A value of 1 indicates missing data for that case, 0 indicates
data is not missing. For example, with the options gen(M_) dummy,
variables such as M_female M_income would be generated.

nonumber specifies that a variable that has missing cases will be
indicated by a . rather than by a single digit number corresponding
to the sequence number of that variable. For example, without the
nonumber option, a missing data pattern might look like
_2_4_ 6___ to indicate missing data in the 2nd, 4th and 6th
variables. With the nonumber option, the pattern
would be _._._ .___ .

nosort specifies that the list of patterns of missing data
should not be sorted with the most common pattern listed first. With
nosort, the patterns are listed according to the pattern, not the
frequency of missing data.

replace replaces existing variables rootnamen
and rootnamewhich if they already exist.

space indicates that in the summary table a space rather than
a _ will be used to indicate when a variable does not have missing data.

help requests a description of each part of the output.