st: running do files from unix -- can we pass values to the do file?

[Pablo Mitnik <pmitnik@ssc.wisc.edu>]

Dear all,

I want to run several  time-intensive Stata jobs in the background at 
the same time (I can do it, because I can send them to different 
machines). The different jobs
are exactly the same, but for a couple of locals at the beginning that 
vary in their values. One way to do this is to make as many copies of 
the do file as jobs, changing the
values of the locals in each and renaming the do files,  and then run 
them from Unix one by one, using their individual names. This is 
inelegant and, when you have to do it many many many times,
rather bothersome.

An elegant and efficient alternative would be to be able to pass the 
values of the locals to the do file when running it, something like:

stata -b do dofile localvalue1 localvalue2 &

Of course, this cannot be done this way.

For the time being I have solved the problem with the help of a friend 
who wrote a pearl script that does exactly what I need . But I would 
like to know whether it can
be done using just Stata -- not only I hate to use other programs if it 
can be done in Stata, but I like to be able to tinker with any program I 
use, something I cannot
do with the pearl script because I don't know pearl.

All best,

Pablo

--
Pablo A. Mitnik
University of Wisconsin-Madison (http://www.wisc.edu/ )
Department of Sociology ( http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/soc/)
Center on Wisconsin Strategy (http://www.cows.org/ )
1180 Observatory Drive
Room 7114A
Madison, WI 53706
TEL (608) 2621839
E-mail: pmitnik@ssc.wisc.edu

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