Re: st: ado file help

[Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com>]

There are broadly two ways to learn a language, (a) to try it out and
(b) to read about it. Both are needed, but (a) is not working well for
you because you are not giving (b) a fair try.

1. Your -syntax- is illegal if only because -numeric- is _not_ allowed
as a keyword by itself. Either you want to specify an integer argument
or a real one. See my email at
http://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/2012-08/msg00396.html for a
recent reminder.

2. Your program says that -brokerid()- is an option, but you typed
-brokerod()-. There is another typo in -graphttype()-.

3. Also, the purpose of capitalisation in a -syntax- statement is to
signal acceptable abbreviations of option names. It doesn't indicate
how those option names should be typed when invoking a program
yourself.

Nick

On Tue, Aug 14, 2012 at 3:26 PM, tashi lama <ltashi32@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Ok. The confusion I had was my arguments were either varlist/namelist/anything  and hence I was reading and I quote from Stata "If you type nothing, the command doesn't allow a varlist/namelist/anything". In any case, I had
> .....
> syntax,STARTdate(str) ENDdate(str) BROKERid(numeric) GRAPHtype(str)
> ...
> obdc load, exec("select date(read_date), count(*) from readership where source_id==`BROKER_id' and date(read_date) between '`STARTdate'' and '`ENDdate'' group by date(read_date)")
> if "`GRAPHtype'"=="pie" {
> ......
> ..
> end
>
> and when I run
> dd, STARTdate("2011-01-01") ENDdate("2011-01-20") BROKERod(6429) GRAPHTtype("pie")
> stata isn't happy and throws back invalid syntax.
>
> ----------------------------------------
>> Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2012 01:42:08 +0100
>> Subject: Re: st: ado file help
>> From: njcoxstata@gmail.com
>> To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
>>
>> Daniel's advice is excellent. More directly, answers are
>>
>> 1. No.
>> 2. No.
>>
>> You don't need varlist, namelist, or anything as the four things you
>> want to specify on the command line are all definable as arguments to
>> options. From your own question that would be sufficient.
>>
>> Nick
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 11:01 PM, tashi lama <ltashi32@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> > Sorry Nick, this doesn't help much.
>> > 1. Do we not need to define varlist/namelist/anything after syntax
>> > 2. How do you put it as macro in the query. Is it going to be
>> > syntax anything, STARTdate(str) ENDdate(str) BROKERid(numeric) /* anything because the arguments are not varlists
>> > odbc load, exec("select date(read_date), count(*) from readership where source_id=`BROKER_id' and date(read_date) between '`STARTdate'' and '`ENDdate'' group by date(read_date)")
>> > or
>> > odbc load, exec("select date(read_date), count(*) from readership where source_id=`anything list' and date(read_date) between '`anything list'' and '`anything list'' group by date(read_date)")
>> >
>> > ----------------------------------------
>> >> Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2012 22:25:46 +0100
>> >> Subject: Re: st: ado file help
>> >> From: njcoxstata@gmail.com
>> >> To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
>> >>
>> >> As you want to write a program, you will find it much easier to write
>> >> it in Stata style
>> >>
>> >> program dd
>> >> syntax , STARTdate(str) ENDdate(str) BROKERid(str) GRAPHtype(str)
>> >>
>> >> <whatever>
>> >>
>> >> end
>> >>
>> >> Nick
>> >>
>> >> On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 9:41 PM, tashi lama <ltashi32@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > I wrote a do-file a while ago with 4 arguments as follows:
>> >> >
>> >> > begin dofile dd.do
>> >> > clear
>> >> > set more off
>> >> > args graph_type broker_id start_date end_date
>> >> > qui odbc query indigo
>> >> > odbc load, exec("select date(read_date) as date, count(*) as hits from readership where firm_id=`broker_id' and date(read_date) between '`start_date'' and '`end_date'' group by date")
>> >> > if "`graph_type''=="pie" {
>> >> > ............
>> >> > exit
>> >> > }
>> >> > else {
>> >> > ........
>> >> > exit
>> >> > }
>> >> >
>> >> > The problem with this code was because args is a positional macros, whatever I enter as `1' would be graph_type, `2' as broker_id and so on. If I enter the following
>> >> > do dd 2011-01-01 pie 2011-01-20 6429 => stata would take 2011-01-01 as graph_type and yields error.
>> >> >
>> >> > This makes this code not so convenient and I would like to attempt to write a code (possible ado file with synatx) so that the code would run when
>> >> >
>> >> > dd graph_type="pie" start_date="2011-01-01" broker_id=6429 end_date="2011-01-20"
>> >> > or
>> >> > dd end_date="2011-01-20" graph_type="line" start_date="2011-01-01" broker_id=6429
>> >> >
>> >> > I tried but got stuck
>> >> >
>> >> > begin adofile dd
>> >> > clear
>> >> > program dd
>> >> > syntax anything
>> >> > qui odbc ...
>> >> > odbc load, exec(".....
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