Re: st: how to run do files in two computers, one with Windows XP,another with Vista

["Kyle K. Hood" <kyle.hood@yale.edu>]

Adrian,

In general, you can save quantities and local and global macros using 
extended functions.  environment (or env for short) is one such 
function.  See

. help extended_fcn

for a full list of them.  The syntax is

local blah : env env_var_name
or
global blah : env env_var_name

Here, env tells stata to return an environment variable from the windows 
OS and put it in blah (local or global tells it to use a local or global 
macro).  These variables are used for a number of purposes, often to 
store paths (other programs use them, for example, to access your 
processor or system type to determine compatibility).

You can google environment variables windows xp to determine what they 
are called.  Some cannot be messed with, some can, but all can be 
accessed.  A sample website that I got from googling these terms is 
http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/environment.htm

You can alter/add environment variables in Control Panels -> System -> 
Advanced (tab) -> Environment Variables (button).  However, some in the 
list on the website do not appear on this control panel.

Kyle

Adrian de la Garza wrote:

> Thanks a lot to everyone for your suggestions. Michael Blasnik's and James Hassell's answers look like they could be my best shot... but I really have no idea how to do the things you suggest, as I have never used global variables or environment variables. Could you please be a little bit more specific and tell me a bit more in detail what I'd have to do or read? T
>
> Thank you very much. 
> Adrian 
>   
> > From: jhassell@stata.com
> > To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
> > Subject: Re: st: how to run do files in two computers, one with Windows XP, another with Vista
> > Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2008 17:48:04 -0500
> >
> > Adrian could use the extended macro function -env- to
> > get the information from the operating system's environment variables.
> >
> > For example:
> >
> > . local homepath : env HOMEPATH
> > . local homedrive : env HOMEDRIVE
> > . local mypath `homedrive'`homepath'
> > . display `"`mypath'"'
> >
> > To determine what environment variables are available, open a command
> > prompt in Windows, and type -set-.
> >
> > Hope this helps.
> >
> > -- James
> > jhassell@stata.com
> >
> >
> >     
> > > Quick question regarding running do files in two separate computers.
> > > My old laptop and my desktop both have Windows XP and I've been
> > > running my do files with lines with the following contents:
> > >
> > > cd "C:\documents and settings\adrian\my documents\research\"
> > >
> > > and I've never had any problems. Now I have a new laptop with
> > > Windows Vista and the directory where My Documents are saved no
> > > longer comes after "documents and settings"...
> > >
> > > what can I do in this case? Do I need to change all of my do files
> > > or is there an easier fix?
> > >
> > > Adrian
> > >       
> > *
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> > * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
> >     
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