Re: st: [Stata 12] Issue with -export excel-

[Eric Booth <ebooth@ppri.tamu.edu>]

<>

Thanks Alan, this clears it up.  I didn't think about "!" being seen as part of the expression in the single-line case, so when I coded something similar in the past I must have used -shell- instead of -!- (which does work in a single-line in both 11 and 12).

- Eric

On Jul 27, 2011, at 6:06 PM, Alan Riley wrote:

> Eric Booth (ebooth@ppri.tamu.edu) asked some questions about Stata 12.
> 
> Eric's first question was about an error he received after exporting a
> dataset to .xlsx format with -export excel-.  He answered his own question
> when he found that one of his string variables contained a binary character
> in one of its values.  Excel cannot read a .xlsx file which contains
> a binary character in a string value.  Printable extended ASCII characters
> are supported.
> 
> Eric's third question regarding shifting blocks of code in the
> Do-file Editor in Stata for Mac was answered here:
> 
>   http://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/2011-07/msg00963.html
> 
> Eric's second question involved an error he received when using
> an -if- statement without curly braces { } to indicate the code
> that should be executed when the -if- condition is true.  In
> addition, the code he wanted to execute used an '!' to shell
> out to the operating system.
> 
> When Eric coded
> 
>   foreach file in input dta {
>      if "`c(os)'" == "MacOSX" {
>         !open "from`file'.xlsx"
>      }
>   }
> 
> his code worked as expected.  But, when he coded
> 	
>   foreach file in input dta {
>      if "`c(os)'" == "MacOSX"  !open "from`file'.xlsx"
>   }
> 
> he received an error.  Eric thought this error was new to Stata 12
> and that Stata 11 ran such code fine.
> 
> Both Stata 11 and Stata 12 can execute code that looks like
> 
>   if some_expression  do_this_if_some_expression_is_true
> 
> And, both Stata 11 and Stata 12 can execute code that looks like
> 
>   if some_expression {
>      do_this_if_some_expression_is_true
>   }
> 
> However, if the single-line case, if the code to be executed when the
> expression is true begins with an exclamation point (!) to shell out to
> the operating system, both Stata 11 and Stata 12 will error out:
> 
>   if some_expression  !do_this_by_shelling_out
> 
> Stata's expression parser is interpreting the '!' as part of
> the expression even though it doesn't affect evaluation of the
> expression.  Thus, when shelling out to the operating system
> in an -if- condition, Eric should always code
> 
>   if some_expression {
>      !do_this_by_shelling_out
>   }
> 
> 
> --
> Alan
> ariley@stata.com
> 
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