Ernest Berkhout
> vallist oplnr
> foreach oplnr of local r(list) {
...
>
> The error message I get is:
>
> { required
> r(100)
Solutions have been suggested, but
let's back-track to why this doesn't work,
as the explanation may be of interest.
Here's my reconstruction.
-vallist- leaves behind r(list).
When you type
. foreach oplnr of local r(list) {
Stata tries to make sense of r(list)
as the _name_ of a local macro. It
sees first
r
which could be all or part of a legal name for
a local macro. So far, so good. Then it sees
(
which is definitely not acceptable as part
of the name of a local macro. So it guesses
that the macroname has finished and (apart
from the possibility of spaces) the only legal
thing it now expects is a "{": manifestly "("
does not qualify, so at this point Stata exits and
emits its error message, as your syntax is illegal. In other words,
Stata got as far as
. foreach oplnr of local r(
before exiting. It didn't try to look further
than that, because it knew this could not possibly
be right.
This is all a consequence of the keyword -local-.
As Patrick explained, if you want to use the
_value_ of r(list), not its name, you can use
the syntax `r(list)' but you must go for the
-in- syntax of -foreach- which spells out
the _in_dividual members of the list.
. foreach v in `r(list)' {
or something similar. Sometimes a bare
r(list)
will be evaluated by Stata to its
value, but usually (always???) that is
to the right of an = sign.
Nick
[email protected]
*
* For searches and help try:
* http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
* http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
