Re: st: looping through data files in do-file

[Sarah Elizabeth Edgington <sedging@ucla.edu>]

David,
You're sticking in extra quotation marks you don't need.  In the 
display command it doesn't matter because display allows multiple 
quoted sections with other syntax in between but it does matter with 
the actual path because Stata is trying to parse all of those 
quotation marks as part of your filename.
Instead of
use " "$filepath""CPT_""`month'""_2009"".dta" ",clear
try

use "${filepath}$(filename}`month'`year'${suffix} " ,clear
or
use " "${filepath}CPT_`month'_2009.dta ",clear
if you don't want to use all the macros you've set up.
The braces aren't strictly necessary in the first example but I find 
they make it a lot easier for me to parse global macros and they 
avoid problems when a global macro is followed immediately by some 
non-macro text.

-Sarah

 At 07:55 AM 10/21/2010, Broudy, David, DOH wrote:
> I'm trying to create a do file that will open a monthly data file, run a
> couple of commands to create a variable, select and keep records, save a
> new file and go to the next month.  Later these monthly abstract files
> will be merged into an annual file.
>
>  I'm having trouble building the string with the path and file names.
> Each month's data differs only in a two character number that represents
> the calendar month  01 is Jan etc
>
> The new file will be named the same as the input file but with _R13
> inserted.
>
>
> version 9
>
> local year "_2009"
>
> global filename "CPT_"
>
> global suffix ".dta"
>
> global filepath "i:\My_Docs_on_I\BEHRdata\CPT_2009\"
>
> global mod  "_R13"
>
> foreach month in "02"  {
>
> display "$filepath""CPT_""`month'""_2009"".dta"
>
> use " "$filepath""CPT_""`month'""_2009"".dta" ",clear
>
>
>
> This seems to work and displays a correct path and filename.
>
> But when I put the same string in a use statement it gives an error.
> I've tried a lot of combinations of single and double quotes-see run
> below.
>
>  . do "C:\DOCUME~1\DAVID~1.BRO\LOCALS~1\Temp\STD05000000.tmp"
>
> . version 9
>
>  . local year "_2009"
>
>  . global filename "CPT_"
>
>  . global suffix ".dta"
>
> . global filepath "i:\My_Docs_on_I\BEHRdata\CPT_2009\"
>
> . global mod  "_R13"
>
> . foreach month in "02"  {
>
>   2. display "$filepath""CPT_""`month'""_2009"".dta"
>
>   3. use " "$filepath""CPT_""`month'""_2009"".dta" ",clear
>
>
>
> . }
>
> i:\My_Docs_on_I\BEHRdata\CPT_2009\CPT_02_2009.dta   [this is the string
> displayed]
>
> invalid 'i'    [this apparently is an error trying to execute use]
>
> Doesn't seem like running an analysis program against a set of recurring
> data files should be so complicated.  What am I missing?
>
>
> Thank you in advance
>
>
>
> David Broudy
> Epidemiologist,
> NM State Dept Health
>
>
>
>
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