Thanks to everyone for your suggestions. Just to follow up on this issue, I'm definitely not leaving files open that are causing problems when I run the do file. As I said, sometimes I run a do file that creates a .dta file from scratch, makes changes to it, and then tries to overwrite this file (save, replace), and then I get the error! So I definitely think it has something to do with the processing speed or something like that, like some of you suggested.
I also noticed that this was happening with a desktop I'm using that has Stata 9 but not with my laptop that has Stata 10 (and yes, I have Windows XP on both machines). Since I have a deadline tomorrow, I simply stopped using the machine that has Stata 9 to avoid these issues altogether for now... but as soon as I'm done with my deadline, I will try and implement these solutions you guys suggested and get back to you.
Thanks a lot!
Adrian
> From: [email protected]
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: st: Stata thinks files are read-only when they shouldn't be!
> Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 22:59:29 -0500
>
> Roy is right that the problem might be that Adrian is opening his text
> file before Stata has finished. Additionally, it might be that Adrian
> has opened the text file, left it open, and tried to run the do-file
> again. If so, this may produce the same error.
>
> So, to add to my previous suggestions about telling DOS to give read-
> write attributes to the text file and telling Stata to sleep for a
> bit, maybe Adrian needs to add a command to tell Windows to close his
> text program before running each iteration of the loop, just in case
> he left it open or he tries to peek at it too early.
>
> So you might add the line:
>
> winexec taskkill /F /IM Notepad.exe /T
>
> if you were using Windows XP and you were opening your
> "myfile_happ.txt" file in notepad. You'll need to adjust this
> according to the program you are using to look at the .txt file.
>
> Additionally, if you are using Mac or linux, you can use the command:
>
> !osascript -e 'tell application "TextEdit" to quit'
>
> to close the text editor (if you were using TextEdit in MacOSX to look
> at your .txt file).
>
> You can put this line at the beginning of your loop and the OS will
> ignore it if you've already closed the text editor.
>
>
>
> Best,
>
> Eric
>
> __
> Eric A. Booth
> Public Policy Research Institute
> Texas A&M University
> [email protected]
> Office: +979.845.6754
>
>
>
>
> On May 10, 2009, at 8:03 PM, Roy Wada wrote:
>
>>
>>> outreg2 lrwage lrwager firm_l firm_iqr [Self0 Self1 ...]
>>> using myfile_`y', replace bdec(2) label nocons excel}
>>>
>>> file myfile_happ.txt is read-only; cannot be modified or erased
>>> dr(608)
>>>
>>> And I get this error whether myfile_happ.txt exists in the directory
>>> or not.
>>
>> You usually get this error when the file is being used by another
>> software,
>> usually Excel or Word. This happens when you peek at the output while
>> -outreg2- is still running. This makes the file "read-only" to Stata.
>>
>> The solution is to close the file and don't open it until Stata has
>> finished running. Because Adrian's problem is intermittent, this might
>> be the case.
>>
>> If you want to look at an -outreg2- file while it is still running,
>> then
>> you should copy-and-paste the file (control-c, control-v), and then
>> look
>> at the duplicated file.
>>
>> I think this is mentioned somewhere in the help file (not leave the
>> file
>> open), but a smart thing is for -outreg2- to send its own error
>> message
>> telling you to close the file.
>>
>> If this cannot be done, then it needs to be put in the help file
>>
>> Roy
>>
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>
>
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