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From | "Eric A. Booth" <eric.a.booth@gmail.com> |
To | statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu |
Subject | Re: st: catching variable mismatch in the data |
Date | Fri, 13 Sep 2013 06:07:39 -0500 |
<> Hi Paul: It appears you want to stop your do file if there is any variable present that has a variable name of the pattern var4???. If you find them, then you want to stop your do-file (based on the use of the error message and -exit- in your loop). Your loop is failing for a few reasons. First , var4### is illegal; instead, you want var4???. Also, the second line with 'capture confirm...' is irrelevant when you start the loop with 'foreach x1 of varlist var4??? { ' because if there were no var4??? in your dataset the loop would stop there and say 'variable 4??? not found', having never reached the 'capture confirm...' lines nested below. Instead, I think you can put these 2 lines in your do-file to get the functionality you seek: ** cap noi ds var4??? if `"`r(varlist)'"' != "" exit ** - Eric On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 5:35 AM, Paul Byatta <paulbyatta@ymail.com> wrote: > Hi Statalist > > I writing lines of commands that will alert me whenever there is a mismatch between variable names. I know there is a mismatch when the dataset contains a foreign variable name. I also know the foreign variable name/s will take the prefix of "var" and end with with a number greater than 4000 (because the total non-foreign variables are 4000). > > The commands I have so far > > foreach x1 of varlist var4###{ > capture confirm variable `x1' > if _rc != 0 { > display as err "There is a mismatch between variable names in the data" > exit _rc > } > > > I know based on an earlier discussion on this list (Re: st: -confirm variable- does not accept varlist (wildcards)) that "capture confirm" command doesnt accept varlist, but does somebody have any alternative suggestions on how to programmatically achieve my goal above. > > > Thanks > Paul > > > * > * For searches and help try: > * http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search > * http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/resources/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/faqs/resources/statalist-faq/ * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/