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| From | Abhimanyu Arora <abhimanyu.arora1987@gmail.com> |
| To | statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu |
| Subject | Re: st: multiple merging |
| Date | Tue, 3 Apr 2012 14:11:39 +0200 |
How very marvellous, Nick, nmerge works fine without the use of compound double quotes (surprisingly). But just to make sure I am understanding the nitty-gritties, do the characters *! mean non-SSC user written files? Cheers Abhimanyu On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 12:51 PM, Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com> wrote: > The side-effects of =subinstr() were discussed in a recent thread. > Don't use it here. Use -: subinstr -. > > Contrary to your earlier report, -nmerge- is not on SSC. It is from > > http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/ado/analysis > > If you look at the code you will see that the program (not do-file) > doesn't have a *! line. That's not illegal. > > I have never used -nmerge- but I think your `" "' are not helping at > all. You probably need something more like > > local files4 : subinstr local files ".dta" "", all > nmerge date using `files4' > > On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 11:26 AM, Abhimanyu Arora > <abhimanyu.arora1987@gmail.com> wrote: >> Hi Nick >> Thanks very much indeed. Helps clear my understanding both of >> -gettoken- and the use of compound double quotes. >> Even as I await Ryan Knight's reply with regard to SSC's -mergeall-, I >> was trying using Mike M Mitchell's -nmerge- (the -which- command >> doesn't seem to display the version of the do file). >> >> The use of nmerge requires the file names in its syntax (simply >> separated by spaces, hence the reason for using the extended macro fcn >> clean—but error both with and without this) >> >> After the use of gettoken I get the file names but each in double >> quotes. Say the macro files contains the strings "file1.dta" >> "file2.dta" ... >> >> Assume we start with file0 (the one to which others will merge) >> >> Complementing with >> local files4=subinstr(`"`files'"',".dta","",.) >> >> I get >> >> . nmerge date using `"`files4'"' >> One or more filenames after 'using' required >> (no error though) >> >> di `"`files4'"' >> >> "file1" "file2"....and so on >> >> OR >> >> local files2 : list clean files >> local files3=subinstr(`"`files2'"',".dta","",.) >> >> I get >> . nmerge date using `"`files3'"' >> 'file2' found where nothing expected >> >> di `"`files3'"' >> >> file1 file2... and so on >> >> Not able to understand why this error. I thought the second option >> should work out but don't know what's blocking. >> >> Abhimanyu >> >> On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 9:48 AM, Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com> wrote: >>> Your use of -gettoken- is quite illegal. -gettoken- is perhaps most >>> often used in this form >>> >>> gettoken emname1 emname2 : emname3 >>> >>> in which the -emname*- are extended macronames. Focus on the "names": >>> you are feeding -gettoken- with macro contents as the macro >>> _reference_ `r(files)' will get expanded by Stata before -gettoken- >>> sees it. >>> >>> Nor will r(files) be acceptable to -gettoken-. >>> >>> This is an example of will work: >>> >>> fs <whatever> >>> local files `" `r(files)' "' >>> gettoken first files : files >>> >>> In your case the -local- command may be enough. There is no need to >>> clean up the " " as they are there for a purpose, to bind names with >>> spaces. >>> >>> -fs- is from SSC. >>> >>> Nick >>> >>> On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 11:22 PM, Abhimanyu Arora >>> <abhimanyu.arora1987@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>>> I have datasets which I need to merge into a single file. All files >>>> have a (string) variable that uniquely identifies observations in the >>>> files. >>>> There are two user-written commands I found in the SSC—mergeall (Ryan >>>> Knight) and nmerge(Michael N. Mitchell). >>>> I am facing problems with both. >>>> >>>> In the first case I get a type mismatch error even though I specify >>>> the string option with force >>>> >>>> In the second case I am unable to get my file names (except the first >>>> file) in a macro. I used fs(Nick Cox) get the file names in r(files). >>>> Next I type in gettoken first `r(files)' : `r(files)' >>>> >>>> That shows the following error >>>> >>>> _"filename1.dta invalid name >>>> >>>> I tried using extended macro function to clean up the quotes but to no >>>> avail. >>> > > * > * For searches and help try: > * http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search > * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq > * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/ * * For searches and help try: * http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/