Pablo Mitnik <[email protected]>:
You are not back in Stata; you never entered Mata. The -foreach- loop
aggregates all the commands before running, one of which is -end-,
which exits the loop and executes none of it.
Try
foreach i in 1 2 {
di `i'
end
}
to see what I mean. A similar problem arises is you try to -input-
data inside a -program- etc. The use of -end- to end many commands is
somewhat problematic in this case. I agree that -help end- should
explain this.
On 12/7/07, Pablo Mitnik <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Nick Cox wrote:
> > The answer to your 2 is Yes, with some exceptions for good reasons, as
> > when you
> > call Stata from Mata, but that is not the issue as I understand it.
> >
> > The issue is that at that point in your code you are back in Stata and
> > so
> > (in context) -end- is illegal.
> >
>
> Why am I back in Stata at this point?
>
>
> > There can be no legal or meaningful -end- of a state without some
> > beginning
> > that defines the start of that state (cf. much philosophy and all
> > eschatology).
> >
> > Less enigmatically, in Stata -end- on a line by itself can indicate the
> > end of
> > a program which started with a -program- statement, and in Mata -end-
> > indicates
> > a desire to return to Stata. -help end- returns nothing, because -end-
> > is
> > not a statement by itself. But -search end- brings up some pointers,
> > some
> > of which are relevant to your 1.
> >
> > It's a hard lesson that Stata's not behaving as you would guess, imagine
> > or prefer
> > does not in itself constitute a bug.
> >
> > Pablo Mitnik
> >
> > Thanks much for the suggestion . I can do that, and will probably do it.
> > But:
> > 1. Is there a documented "end" command in Stata? Typing "help end"
> > returns nothing, while "search end" only returns the Mata end statement.
> > 2. If I am "within Mata," shouldn't everything be run in Mata?
> >
> > Maarten buis wrote:
> >
> >> --- Pablo Mitnik <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>> This is rather inconvenient when you have a longer code to run in
> >>> Mata; and I haven't found any explanation in the manuals why the code
> >>>
> >
> >
> >>> with "mata" and "end" shouldn't work -- my bet is that this is a bug.
> >>>
> >>>
> >> The end command is run in Stata not Mata, so you get the correct error
> >> message.
> >>
> >> The way to do this in a more convenient way is to first create a mata
> >> function, so within the loop all you need is a single call to Mata.
> >> This is explained in terms of .ado programming in -help m1_ado-.
> >>
> >
> > *
> > * 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/
> >
>
> --
> 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: [email protected]
>
>
> *
> * 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/
>
*
* 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/
