Martin Weiss,
Good question about why I would want to make things complicated. I should have stated in my question that I was trying to give a simple example of what I really wanted to do. In my program I process a lot of data and then end up with some values stored in macros that I need to make a new dataset out of. Perhaps there is a better way, but I am still getting used to the Stata style of programming, which I would say is extremely different than in conventional languages (or maybe I just think that because I have not learned enough of Stata yet).
I did not know about _rc, that seems like it will be a useful thing to remember in the future.
Maarten Buis,
that is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you! I was trying to think of a way of doing something like that (I was going to do --input--, then input whatever as observations just to expand the number and replace them after), but I doubt I would have been able to come up with anything as good as your "solution". tokenize definitely seems useful for this application.
Thank you both for the replies!
Scott
Maybe the following is what you want? See -help extended_fcn- and
-help tokenize- for more details.
*----------- begin example ---------------
clear
local colors "red blue yellow"
local n : word count `colors'
set obs `n'
gen colors = ""
tokenize `colors'
forvalues i = 1/`n' {
replace colors = "``i''" in `i'
}
*----------- end example -----------------
(For more on how to use examples I sent to the Statalist, see
http://home.fsw.vu.nl/m.buis/stata/exampleFAQ.html )
Hope this helps,
Maarten
-----------------------------------------
Maarten L. Buis
Department of Social Research Methodology
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Boelelaan 1081
1081 HV Amsterdam
The Netherlands
visiting address:
Buitenveldertselaan 3 (Metropolitan), room Z434
+31 20 5986715
http://home.fsw.vu.nl/m.buis/
> From: [email protected]
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: st: RE: simple data input question- expanding macros
> Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:54:54 +0200
>
> This raises questions on several levels. If the -local- does not do the job,
> the -global- probably won`t fix that. Omit the equal sign which is
> unnecessary. See the following for an example of what happens:
>
> *******
> local color "red"
> cap di `color'
> di _rc
> di "`color'"
> *******
>
> On another level, why do you not paste the strings into the data editor?
> Your approach to entering data seems unusual and horribly complicated...
>
> HTH
> Martin
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected]
> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
> [email protected]
> Sent: Friday, August 15, 2008 10:35 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: st: simple data input question- expanding macros
>
> Hi, I apologize for such a simple question. I hope to eventually participate
> in statalist on a much higher level.
>
> I would like to input data that I have in strings manually in a .do file.
> That is, say I have a for loop going through a list of a bunch of strings,
> how can I use those strings to input data?
>
> Say, I have a macro called color.
> and, I have an existing dataset with blue and green as observations (there
> is only one variable, COL).
> Why doesn't the following work:
>
> local color = "red"
> input
> `color'
> end
>
> I tried the above code using a global variable as well, to no avail:
>
> global color = "red"
> input
> ${color}
> end
>
>
> Is there a better way to do this? How do I expand my macro before anything
> else happens?
>
> Thank you!
>
> PS. is there any good forum online that might be better for beginner
> questions?
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