Ulrich Kohler asked about calling Stata (including a local macro
substitution) from Mata:
> I have a Mata function which looks as follows:
>
> -------------------------------------lsq.mata--
>
> (...)
>
> // Mata Function to extract the substitution costs from subcost-matrix
> void showhash(real rowvector R)
> {
> string scalar key1
> st_local("key1",key1)
> key1 = strofreal(R[1,2])
> st_local("key1",key1)
> stata("local hash1 = mod(`key1',197)")
> }
>
> (...)
>
> ------------------------------------------------
>
> The function is part of the mata-libary lsq.mlib, which compiles without
> problems. All other function in the library works well. However, if I run
> -showhash()- from within Mata I got the following error:
>
> : R = 2,3,5,4
> : showhash(R)
> invalid syntax
> stata(): 3598 Stata returned error
> showhash(): - function returned error
> <istmt>: - function returned error
> r(3598);
>
> Further investigation showed that the error is connected to the -stata()-
> function. However, After running -showhash()- I can intactively run the same
> -stata()- function without any problems:
>
> : stata("local hash1 = mod(`key1',197)")
> : stata("display `hash1'")
> 3
`key1' is being substituted at compile time. That is, when
Stata reads the lines
void showhash(real rowvector R)
{
string scalar key1
st_local("key1",key1)
key1 = strofreal(R[1,2])
st_local("key1",key1)
stata("local hash1 = mod(`key1',197)")
}
just before they are compiled by Mata, macros are substituted.
This, what is compiled is
void showhash(real rowvector R)
{
string scalar key1
st_local("key1",key1)
key1 = strofreal(R[1,2])
st_local("key1",key1)
stata("local hash1 = mod(,197)")
}
And,
local hash1 = mod(,197)
produces a syntax error when it is executed later.
The reason it works interactively afterward is that by that point
the local macro 'key1' has already been defined, and thus what
Mata sees is
stata("local hash1 = mod(1.234,197)")
(or rather, it sees whatever number was in R[1,2] and thus
was stored in `key1').
You can see the advantage of this macro substitution in
adoupdate.ado. Type -which adoupdate- and then look at the
file in a text editor (being careful to not modify it of course).
Look for CMDNAME and the local macros after it, then search lower
in the file to see how they are used. Their values get substituted,
not at run-time, but just before the lines are compiled.
Ulrich needs to protect `key1' from being substituted just
before compilation by coding
stata("local hash1 = mod(\`key1',197)")
The string that will be compiled into the code to be passed to
stata() will then literally be
local hash1 = mod(`key1',197)
which is what Ulrich wants.
Alan
([email protected])
*
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