Whatever the rest of your code, -xtset- evidently fails because
-NewCompanyNum- is not yet a variable. Tweaking anything else won't
affect this fundamental problem. Either you need to create
-NewCompanyNum- before you call -xtset- or (same thing really) you need
to postpone the -xtset-.
I am not at all clear why you want to convert this do file to a program.
Specific calculations with specific names embedded are usually much
better off as do files.
While it's true that creation of specific variables with wired-in names
is perfectly legal in a program, it is usually bad style.
The main rationale for a program (strict sense) is the generality that
flows from abstraction. If your embedded names are included because you
are moving step-by-step towards a more general program, then all well
and good, but otherwise you will get the frustration of learning several
aspects of programming all at once, without any of the benefits.
Only rarely is an effective program a do file with different top and
tail.
More positively put, it is best to learn Stata programming from really
simple examples, even just copying very simple examples from [U] on to
your machine and checking of your understanding one small step at a
time.
Rush ordering Kit Baum's new book is another good way....
Nick
[email protected]
Thomas Jacobs
here is the surrounding results to running with set trace on:
CalledPooledModel "1143" "1148" 10 100 0 reg FYR L.FYR L(0/1).DSFinR
------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
begin xtset ---
- version 9.2
- syntax [varlist(numeric max=2 default=none)] [,*]
variable NewCompanyNum not found
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
end xtset ---
(error occurred while loading CalledPooledModel.ado)
CalledPooledModel is the ado and the only place in the ado program
where NewCompanyNum is used is in the command
xtset NewCompanyNum TradeDateNum
so I am still left wondering if the ado processes prior to execution
and determines that this variable does not exist and generates the
error while loading or something else?
>> I am trying to convert a called do file to an ado with little
success.
>> Besides inserting the program line at the top and end line at the
>> bottom, I have made no changes to the working called do version which
>> is executed with a number of arguments passed from the calling
>> program. The error I keep getting is
>>
>> variable NewCompanyNum not found
>> (error occurred while loading CalledPooledModel.ado)
>>
>> without pasting the entire program here, the variable NewCompanyNum
is
>> created within the ado itself with the following steps:
>>
>> *Create contiguous variable
>> egen NewCompanyNum = group(CompanyNum)
>> summ NewCompanyNum
>> local Count = r(max)
>> dis `Count'
>>
>> where CompanyNum is a numeric variable assigned to the starting
>> company data well upstream of this program. Is there some
restriction
>> on creating a new variable in an ado? Do all the variables it uses
>> have to exist prior to its execution? Thanks for any suggestion
>> anyone might have.
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