I am having a problem with uppercase letters in file names.
I am trying to impose some version control on a bunch of do-files of
the type [filename]_yyyymmdd.do, that have been saved weekly with
various changes over the past two years or so.
In the first stage of this job I just want to read their names, then
collect the yyyymmdd part in a matrix. But I am hitting a snag with
files where the alphanumeric part contains uppercase characters. My
code goes like this:
____ code snippet starts here_____
local `k'list: dir "${dofrom}" files "`k'*.do" // this is the list
of do-files that start with string "`k'_"
local `k'clean: list clean `k'list // this strips the
quotes around file names `k'_[...].do
local `k'num: list sizeof `k'clean // this is the gross
length of that list (in some cases
di "`k'"
di ``k'num' // it includes
all files that start with `k'_, not strictly
// files of
type `k'_YYYYMMDD.do. in those cases
// an extra
step is needed, see below)
matrix define `k'dates=J(``k'num',1,0) // set up empty matrix to
collect dates of do-files
_____and ends here_____________
Now, for cases where this `k' local is like say "clean_report_", all
is well. But when `k' is like "DNAreport_", I get a reading error and
as a result ``k'num', the length of the list of do-files of interes,
becomes zero. See this case:
______snippet of screen output starts here____
clean_report_
13
number of observations will be reset to 13
Press any key to continue, or Break to abort
obs was 0, now 13
(0 observations deleted)
13
clean_report_dates[13,1]
c1
r1 20080109
r2 20080116
r3 20080123
r4 20080130
r5 20080207
r6 20080213
r7 20080220
r8 20080227
r9 20080305
r10 20080312
r11 20080319
r12 20080326
r13 20080409
DNAreport_
0
invalid syntax
r(198);
end of do-file
r(198);
____and ends here________
I am not sure how to get Stata to recognize these file names properly.
I would appreciate any ideas.
Best,
Gabi
*
* 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/
