Re: st: Setting today's date in a do-file

["Michael S. Hanson" <mshanson@mac.com>]

On Nov 21, 2006, at 7:36 AM, Patrick Woodburn wrote:

> Dear statalist,
>
> So far, when I've wanted a do-file to treat data in a way conditional  
> to
> the date the do-file is run, I've put something like the following
> towards the beginning of my do-file:
>
> **************macro for today's date: UPDATE when repeat
> do-file***************
> global today "d(21nov2006)"
> *********************************************************************** 
> *
> *******
>
> (The stars are a way of emphasising the importance of this line)
>
> I am worried that this is prone to error, if someone forgot to change
> the date or made an incorrect guesse at the date.  Is there any way to
> automatically obtain today's date in Stata, and, perhaps, to  
> incorporate
> this into a global macro called today, so that I can make the simplest
> modification possible?
	I have a series of .do files that write text (ASCII) output to a .log  
file.  Each contains a "report header" based in part on the following  
code:


local dupwidth = 96                // Character width for separators
local timwidth = `dupwidth' - 11   // Location of timestamp
	
noi disp _newline(0)
noi disp as text "`=c(current_date)'" as text %`timwidth's  
"`=c(current_time)'"
noi disp _newline(0)
noi disp as text %~`dupwidth's "Forecast Summary Statistics"
noi disp as text _dup(`dupwidth') "="
noi disp _newline(0)


	These commands are all -noisily- as the code is wrapped in a -quietly{  
}- block so as to not place intermediate results into the .log file.   
See -help creturn- for more information on the c-class values such as  
-c(current_time)-, and -help display- for more information on the text  
formatting options used above.



> I use Stata through a Windows environment, if that makes any  
> difference.
	One of the very attractive things about Stata is that it is completely  
cross-platform, so one is free to use as painful and uncooperative an  
OS as one chooses.

	Hope this helps.

                                        -- Mike

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