st: RE: RE: RE: date function error?

["Steichen, Thomas J." <SteichT@rjrt.com>]

Version 10 date() no longer uses lowercase "dmy"; you must either use upper case "DMY" or run your program under an earlier version; regardless, adding a version statement to your program is recommended.

Tom

-----------------------------------
Thomas J. Steichen
steicht@rjrt.com
-----------------------------------

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu [mailto:owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] On Behalf Of Hoffman, George
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 2:38 PM
To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
Subject: st: RE: RE: date function error?

Thank you, Nick.
well, then the problem is somewhere else. my real question is about a
automatic log-creation program that i have run from a profile.do file at
stata startup, which has been malfunctioning.

my intent was to creat a log file with the name mmddhhmm.log, where mmdd
comes from $S_DATE and hhmm comes from $S_TIME.  my program has looked
like this for years, and it has no longer been able to add the mmdd part
because my call to date("$S_DATE","dmy" returns  missing value:
the program is below.
 thanks for helping me out of this rut.

george hoffman


program define autolog
        local logdir=".\logs\"
        local logfile : display  %dND date("$S_DATE","dmy")
substr("$S_TIME",1,2) substr("$S_TIME",4,2)
        local logfile : display "`logdir'" substr("`logfile'",5,.)
".log"
        capture log using `logfile'
        if _rc==602 {
                                while _rc==602 {capture log using
`logfile'}
                                }
        if _rc!=0       {
                                di in red "could not open logfile"
                                error _rc
                                }
        di "----log file:`logfile'----"
end





-----Original Message-----
From: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
[mailto:owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] On Behalf Of Nick Cox
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 11:50
To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
Subject: st: RE: date function error?

No Stata error here, just a subtle misunderstanding.

Step 1. Stata substitutes macro names by their contents.

Step 2. -display- sees 12Jun and tries to make sense of it but fails.
12Jun is not a number, nor a variable name, nor a scalar name.

Solution: You need to spell out to Stata that you are dealing with a
string.

. di "$S_DATE"

does that.

Nick
n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk

Hoffman, George


i've got stata 10 on win32, and have been troubled by an error in the
date function:

. di $S_DATE
12Jun not found
r(111);


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