Stata: How to use column value as file name in loop

mgdata 0
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I am working with 350 datasets. I want to automate naming the final datasets with values from the dataset.

For example, if ID is abc and year is 2010. There are two columns in the dataset with those values. I want to pull that information out and use in the file name. and the name would look like abc_2010.dta in this case.

So basically I want to do

foreach file in `files' {
    
    
   **calculation codes**
   
   
  ** construct the file name as three digit ID_year.dta **
  
}

I have already done the calculation part. I need some help with the naming of the files.

filenames stata automation
1 Answers

If I understand what you are trying to do, I believe you should be able to do this:

foreach file in `files' {
  **calculation codes**
  ** construct the file name as three digit ID_year.dta **
  local fname:di "`=id[1]'_`=year[1]'"
  save `fname', replace
}

Note that this assume that after the calculation of the current iteration of the loop through files, the value of id in the first row holds the three digit code and the value of year in the first row holds the year.

langtang0
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