Stephen P. Jenkins
> ML programs written in ado file form comprise a main program and
> another program (or programs) called each iteration to evaluate the
> likelihood. Advice please about how to reference in the likelihood
> evaluation program(s), temporary variables that are created
> in the main
> program.
>
> More details:
> In myp1.ado I currently have code like
> generate z`i'`d' = uniform()
> generated in a loop, where `i' = 1,...,$M, and `d' =
> 1,...,$D (and both
> $M, $D are user-defined). The -ml- command in this file calls
> myp1_ll.ado in which I do calculations referring to each variable
> z`i'`d', again within a loop over `i' and `d'.
>
> I can make the program work in this way, but note that the
> "z" prefix
> means that I am generating permanent variables with a specific name
> (a Bad Thing as far as programming is concerned).
Agreed.
> How can I make these indexed variables temporary but still refer to
> them correctly?
> I've played around with using -tempvar- commands within
> myp1.ado, but I
> don't seem able to refer to these (suitably indexed) in
> myp1_ll.ado.
> (Note too Manual [P] macro entry, p. 133, that warns that
> one cannot
> suffix temporary variables with additional characters and use them.)
I have some thoughts on this point, although they are
perhaps orthogonal to Stephen's question.
In fact, you _can_ do this in Stata 7, and I have often
done it, as it lets me do things which I find difficult
otherwise. I'm aware that this is a bug, or perhaps
a loophole, and that some future version of Stata
may close the loophole and break the programs in
question.
What has happened is although permitted variable
names can be much longer in 7 (32 chars), temporary
names are all still 8 characters long. So you can attach
characters to tempnames, and, more important, Stata acts as if
variables created with such names are just like regular
temporary variables.
Here is a simple example:
tempname foo
gen `foo'123 = 123
This works. Also, the variable in question
is dropped when the program finishes.
Why do I want to do this?
Say I want to -separate- something within a program.
The resulting variables are just needed temporarily.
-separate- takes a stub for the names of
variables to be created. In practice,
a tempname does work, and I haven't
thought of an easier solution.
If this is taken away with one hand by Stata Corp,
then I hope they give back another way of doing this
with the other. I have mentioned this to Stata
Corp personnel.
> Another idea was to use global macros to hold the variable names
> created, but again I couldn't get this to work.
In principle, this should work. Any details?
Nick
[email protected]
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