Dear statalisters,
I have a question about the local marco name and loop. I tried hard to
figure the question out but can not. Hope that you can help me out.
Here is the question:
The following is the code that I tried to run:
local list="cuent p412 p413 p413c p414 p416 p417 p4171 p4172 p418 p419
p420 p421 p422 p423 p424 p412ot"
foreach x of local list {
rename `x'_ `x'
}
but STATA returned with the following error message:
variable p4_ not found
r(111);
****
Then I run the following code. The ONLY difference is that I did not use
the equal sign in the local macro command (the first line of the code).
This time it works!
***
I did not know why the change would make a difference. It seems to me
that it doesn't matter with/without equal sign in the local macro
command.
Then this time I shortened the list in the local marco command as follows:
local list="cuent p412"
foreach x of local list {
rename `x'_ `x'
}
It turns out that this time it works with AND without an equal sign in
the local marco command. I am really confused. Is there any explanation
why STATA does this? Is there a general rule for using equal sign or not
in the local marco command?
Thank you very much!
Jian Zhang
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