The short answer is No. -forvalues- was introduced in Stata 7.
A longer answer is: use -while-.
forval i = 1/6 {
...
}
as one example can be mapped to
local i = 1
while `i' <= 6 {
...
local i = `i' + 1
}
The key differences are that with -while-, you must
initialise whatever you use to loop and you must
increment the macro yourself. So -while- imposes
more overhead in interpretation than -forvalues-,
but often you'd find it hard to see how much.
Similar comments could be made about decrementing,
stepping by steps other than 1, etc.
Some may answer -for-.
for num 1/6 : <statements referring to X>
is another way of looping through, and you don't
need to initialise or increment yourself. However,
-for- has been abandoned, and there are lots of
reasons why it is often not a good idea. For one
take on that, see articles in Stata Journal
2(2):202--222 (2002) and 3(2):185--202 (2003).
Notes of a talk based on a draft of the first are
accessible at various places of the web, including
http://fmwww.bc.edu/RePEc/usug2002/fortitude.pdf
Nick
[email protected]
Mark Hanly
>
> I am running Stata 6 on my pc and trying to adapt some code
> written for
> Stata 7 (to which I have access on a network, but which
> takes an age to run).
>
> Is there a command (or sequence of commands) in Stata 6
> which does the same
> thing as the command 'forvalues' in Stata 7?
*
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