Re: st: Problem parsing strings that contain "$CHAR"

[Dan Blanchette <dan.blanchette@duke.edu>]

Hello,

Am thinking you're reading in a SAS program into stata using
-file open- and -file read-, right?

If so, you should use macval() to keep Stata from evaluating
what Stata thinks to be a global macro: $CHAR6

 di `"`macval(line)'"'
. @04080    Variable_C    $CHAR6.

You can also use it inside functions, but you then have to 
implement Nick Cox's suggestion of escaping the dollar sign:

if strpos("`macval(line)'","\$CHAR6.") {
 ...
}

HTH,
Dan Blanchette
Research Associate
Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Duke University's Fuqua School of Business
dan.blanchette@duke.edu

> Dear Stata users,
>
> I have to parse the lines of SAS syntax files that contain 1) the position of a variable in a raw data file, 2) the
> name of the variable, and 3) the data type of the variable. Examples of such lines are:
>
> @04075    Variable_B    $5.
> @04080    Variable_C    $CHAR6.
>
> Both "$#" and "$CHAR#" mean that the variable is a string variable of # characters. I have no problem parsing the
> first line above, but am looking for advice on what to do with lines that contain a sequence like "$CHAR6". Such
> sequences appear to be evaluated first and before the string is parsed, and results in "", as in below:
>
> . loc line @04080    Variable_C    $CHAR6.
> . di "`line'"
> @04080    Variable_C    .
>
> Commands like regexm and tokenize or functions like subinstr also see "." instead of "$CHAR6.", making it impossible
> (for me at least) to retrieve all the relevant information in these lines.
>
> Any help appreciated,
>
> Benoit-Paul Hebert
> Recherche en politiques / Policy Research
> RHDCC/HRSDC

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