Re: st: really silly question

[Scott Talkington <talkings@gmu.edu>]

Thanks.  I got around the need for interaction by creating arguments.  
I've been doing a lot of repetitive commands lately and thought I could 
save a bit of time by creating an interactive program.


On 3/8/2011 9:03 AM, Eric Booth wrote:
> <>
>
> I read Scott's question a different way.  I thought Scott was asking for a way to write a (interactive) program that runs some command (here -tab- is his example) repeatedly, but asking for user input (of two variables x and y) in the command window each time until the user says stop. The way I know to do this is by using -display- with the 'request()' option (see -help display-).  So, Scott's program might look like:
>
> **************!
> cap program drop rerun
> program def rerun
> syntax varlist(min=2 max=2 numeric)
> token `"`varlist'"'
> tab `1' `2', col  V w nokey miss
> noi di `"Enter 2 more vars to -tab- (or type STOP to exit program):"', _request(answer)
> if `"$answer"'=="STOP" exit
> unab totab: $answer
> rerun `totab'
> end
> **********
> *where the user would run from the command line:
>
> sysuse auto, clear
>
> keep in 1/10   //to keep the tab results manageable
>
> rerun for rep78
> 	*user input:  turn rep
> 	*user input:   price for
> 	*and so on....
> 	*user input:  STOP
> **************!
> I'm not sure why Scott would want a program that does this (maybe it's for some kind of interactive demo of the command window for students, he wants something like "display foo, _request(bar)" for a part of another program he's writing,  or he's working from a terminal/interactive Stata session and doesn't want to go back to the do-file to create -tab- results (?)), but it's also worth mentioning that this is all much easier from a do-file where he could use something like:
>
> *******
> loc myvars  rep78 for
> loc myvars2  turn trunk price mpg
> foreach v in `myvars' {
> 	foreach m in `myvars2' {
> 		tab `m' `v', col  V w nokey miss
> 		}
> 	}
> *******
> and just manipulate the local myvar lists.
>
> - Eric
> __
> Eric A. Booth
> Public Policy Research Institute
> Texas A&M University
> ebooth@ppri.tamu.edu
> Office: +979.845.6754
>
>
> On Mar 7, 2011, at 8:46 PM, Scott Talkington wrote:
>
> > The stuff that stumps me in stata is usually something so simple that it's impossible to find a help file or a faq that deals with it in simple terms.
> >
> > I want to write a program that obtains a variable name from keyboard input and then executes a series of commands on that variable.  This should be pretty simple programming but I can't find a simple description of it.
> >
> > lets say I want to fill a local variable `x' with one variable name and a local variable `y' with another variable name than then execute the command
> >
> > .tab `x' `y'
> >
> > and then at the end of the loop it just stops and waits for the keyboard input again
> >
> > Isn't there a simple and obvious way to do this?  Or is it so obvious that it's never mentioned?  It's driving me nuts.
> > *
> > *   For searches and help try:
> > *   http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
> > *   http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
> > *   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
>
>
>
> *
> *   For searches and help try:
> *   http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
> *   http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
> *   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
*
*   For searches and help try:
*   http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
*   http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
*   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/