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st: RE: A problem with temporary file


From   "Nick Cox" <[email protected]>
To   <[email protected]>
Subject   st: RE: A problem with temporary file
Date   Tue, 17 Feb 2009 11:19:15 -0000

I doubt that the problem here is anything to do with temporary files as such, or write access. My guess is that it is the handling of filenames that include spaces. However, I can't reconcile all your reports. 

Stata asks you to bind entire filenames like that given in " ", so that it sees each such name as one token. 

. save "`one'", replace

The help for -save- documents this need: 

"If your filename contains embedded spaces, remember to enclose it in double quotes."

The use of a macro here is perhaps what confused you, or something that may have contributed to your confusion. The key point is that -save- sees the contents of the macro after interpretation. So although the macro name is one word, and can only be one word, that is irrelevant to the principle, as -save- never sees the macro name as such. 

As said, I can't make sense of the conflicting evidence here, but using " " should do no harm and may well be the root cause of your difficulty. 

Nick 
[email protected] 

Joseph McDonnell

A colleague has a problem creating a temporary file. When I run the
following do file (on a shared network drive, not my own C: disk)...

. clear
. set obs 10
. gen n=_n
. list in 1/5
. tempfile one
. save `one', replace
. exit

it works perfectly well. A file is saved in "C:\Documents and
settings\MyName\Local settings\Temp". When she runs it in exactly the
same location, she gets the following error message

. invalid 'Settings'

. r(198);

immediately following the "save".

My first thought was that there was a write access problem. But our IT
guy checked and said there is no difference between my rights and
hers. He then installed Stata on his machine and had the same
problem!! But when he ran Stata on our server, it worked, no problem.

I'm at a bit of a loss as to why this happens. Has anyone encountered
this problem or have a suggestion as to where we look next? We're
using Stata 10 on XP.

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