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

[David Kantor <kantor.d@att.net>]

Interestingly, I recently had a very similar problem.
I have a log-generating program -- an ado. It's not done 
automatically; it's called as needed, and it creates a log and runs a 
specified do-file.
I was running a do-file that included a date-conversion step. It ran 
fine in test runs. Then when I did the "official" run, in conjunction 
with with the logging program, it produced all missing values for the 
date conversion.
I took a while to figure out the problem. Actually, it took a while 
to figure out what conditions created missing values and non-missing 
values. Eventually, I found that it was the use of the logging 
program that made the difference. Until recently, it was always the 
case that the only difference between running with and without the 
logging program was the presence of logging. To me, this was a 
well-established "fact" that I had taken for granted. But it was no 
longer true once I (recently) switched to Stata 10.

The cause of the problem was that the do-file uses the -date()- 
function, as in...
 gen long datevar =  date(date_string_variable, "YMD")
and the logging program has -version 8-, as all my ado files have 
-version- commands. The do-file did not have a -version- command. It 
was written for Stata 10, but I didn't realize that the logging 
program would change the version for the do-file that runs under it 
-- to version to 8, wherein "YMD" was not acceptable.

I have it straightened out now, but I thought it was instructive to 
have gone through that experience -- and may be instructive to share 
it with the rest of you.

--David

At 02:37 PM 6/12/2008, George Hoffman wrote:

> 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.
> [...]
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