read files using local macros in a loop in Stata

Constanza Zepeda 0
Viewed 25

I'm stuck trying to do a loop to read many files that have no correlated names, but I want to save them with correlated names. This is an example of what I have:

paths: 
"example_84745.dta"
"example_74632.dta"
"example_18390.dta"

So, I want to read all of them and save them like

"example_1.dta"
"example_2.dta"
"example_3.dta"

What I'm trying to do is to work with local macros, like this:

local path_1 = "example_84745.dta"
local path_2 = "example_74632.dta"
local path_3 = "example_18390.dta"

forvalues i = 1(1)3{

display "path_`i'"
use "path_`i'", clear 

save "example_`i'"

}

But it is not working. It prints path_1 is not found.

I really appreciate your comments.

stata
1 Answers

You're looping over 1 2 3 and asking to display path_1 path_2 path_3 and then use them, but you need to spell out that they are in turn local macro names.

local path_1 = "example_84745.dta"
local path_2 = "example_74632.dta"
local path_3 = "example_18390.dta"

forvalues i = 1(1)3{

display "`path_`i''"
use "`path_`i''", clear 

save "example_`i'"

}

Local macros in Stata can be used like variables in many programming languages, but it is not customary to regard them as variables. In Stata, a variable is (is only) a column in a dataset.

Nick Cox0
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