st: Re: postfile - posting a string

["Michael Blasnik" <michael.blasnik@verizon.net>]

Try reading -help post-

As shown in the help file, you need to declare string variables in the 
postfile command line, for example

postfile `memhold' str8 var z1 z2

You must also post the actual string, not a valid reference to a variable 
name.  As you do it now, `var' becomes mcd which Stata sees as a variable 
name and inserts mcd[1].   Instead you need to post "`var'"  (use quotes).

Michael Blasnik
michael.blasnik@verizon.net


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Danielle Ferry" <dferry@nber.org>
To: "StataList" <statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu>
Sent: Monday, March 21, 2005 6:10 PM
Subject: st: postfile - posting a string



> Statalisters,
> In the example below, I have a local variable containing a list of 
> variable names, and in the <postfile> procedure I want to post each 
> variable name in that list. In particular, I want the variable "var" in 
> the tempfile "predictions" to be a string and to have an entry of "mcd" in 
> obs 1 and an entry of "priv" in obs 2. The way it is currently written, it 
> posts the VALUE of each variable in the list. Can anyone please help with 
> this?
> Much thanks,
> Danielle Ferry
>
> local insvars "mcd priv ";
> tempname memhold;
> tempfile predictions;
>
> postfile `memhold' var z1 z2 using `predictions';
>
> foreach var of varlist `insvars' {;
> [do stuff] post `memhold' (`var') (`a') (`b');
> };
>
> postclose `memhold';
*
*   For searches and help try:
*   http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
*   http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
*   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/