Here is a quick-n-dirty that constructs the appropriate input
statement. It should also check to see that the lists are of the right
length. It could easily be extended to deal with the generates, sums,
etc.
capt program drop devra
program devra,rclass
syntax ,Vars(integer) Len(numlist) At(numlist) Infix(string)
Prefix(string)
di "want to read and massage `vars' vars"
di "with lengths `len'"
di "at locns `at'"
local inf "`prefix'"
local infend " using `infix'"
forv i=1/`vars' {
local l : word `i' of `len'
local a : word `i' of `at'
local inf "`inf' str`l' a`i' `a'"
}
local inf "`inf' `infend'"
file open devra using "/tmp/devra.do", write replace
file write devra "`inf'"
file close devra
end
To execute:
. devra, vars(3) len(3 5 4) at(21 39 48) infix(rawdata.txt)
prefix(infix str name 1-5 str id 6-10)
want to read and massage 3 vars
with lengths 3 5 4
at locns 21 39 48
. type /tmp/devra.do
infix str name 1-5 str id 6-10 str3 a1 21 str5 a2 39 str4 a3 48 using
rawdata.txt
Kit
On Oct 14, 2004, at 2:33, Devra wrote:
For want of a better, term, I describe my question as how to loop
inside a
single command. I don't see how to make foreach or forvalues work for
this kind of problem, nor has browsing the programming manual, the
FAQs, or
Nick Cox's Stata Journal articles on lists turned up a solution.
The command uses the arguments x1...xN, and I would like to be able to
treat N as a variable. For instance, I need to read a fixed-format
text
file which contains a number N of string variables; N varies each time
I
run the program. The following infix statement does the job for N=5:
infix ///
str name 124-143 ///
str id 144-152 ///
str a1 217 str a2 218 str a3 219 str a4 220 str a5 221 ///
using rawdata.txt
Kit Baum, Boston College Economics [email protected]
http://ideas.repec.org/e/pba1.html
*
* 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/
