Re: st: -args- how to flag when missing or too many arguments

[John Antonakis <John.Antonakis@unil.ch>]

Thanks, Austin.

This works too, except for when w > 4; it does not display the error.  
The program just ignores any arguments beyond 4 arguments (as is the 
default in Stata).
Best,
J.

__________________________________________

John Antonakis
Professor of Organizational Behavior
Director, Ph.D. Program in Management

Faculty of Business and Economics
University of Lausanne
Internef #618
CH-1015 Lausanne-Dorigny
Switzerland
Tel ++41 (0)21 692-3438
Fax ++41 (0)21 692-3305
http://www.hec.unil.ch/people/jantonakis

Associate Editor
The Leadership Quarterly
__________________________________________

On 21.03.2013 22:54, Austin Nichols wrote:
> John Antonakis <John.Antonakis@unil.ch>:
> You might also want to step through various conditions and then issue
> a more informative error message at the end, e.g. consider adapting
> this approach:
>
> cap prog drop john
> prog john, rclass
>   version 12
>   loc err 0
>   args no_vars df N chi
>   loc w: word count `no_vars' `df' `N' `chi'
>   if `w'>4 {
>    loc err 1
>    di in red "More than 4 arguments given"
>    }
>   foreach v in no_vars df N chi {
>    cap confirm integer number `=``v'''
>    if _rc!=0 {
>     loc err 1
>     di in red "Arguments must be integers."
>     }
>    else if ``v''<0 {
>     loc err 1
>     di in red "Arguments must be positive integers."
>     }
>    }
>   if `err'==1 {
>    di in red "Please enter data after the command" _c
>    di in red " john as follows: vars df N chi"
>    exit 198
>    }
> end
>
> On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 5:49 PM, daniel klein <klein.daniel.81@gmail.com> wrote:
> > John,
> >
> > I think I would address this with something like this
> >
> > cap pr drop john
> > pr john
> >          vers 12.1
> >
> >          args a b c d
> >          if !inrange(`: word count `0'', 1, 4) {
> >                  di as err "Please enter data after " ///
> >                  "the command john as follows: vars df N chi"
> >                  e 198
> >          }
> >          numlist "`0'" ,int r(>0)
> >
> > end
> >
> > Best
> > Daniel
> > --
> > Hi:
> >
> > I am writing a program and would like Stata to return an error if an
> > argument is missing or there are too many of them.
> >
> >
> > For example, if an argument is not an integer, the below will return an error:
> >
> >
> >    program define john, rclass
> >    version 12
> >    args no_vars df N chi
> >
> >    if `no_vars'<0 | `df'<0 | `N'<0 | `chi'<0 {
> >    di in red "You have to use integers."
> >    exit 498
> >    }
> > end
> >
> > Now, how do I make Stata display:
> >
> > di in red "Please enter data after the command john as follows: vars df N chi"
> >
> >
> > .....in cases where (a) there is a missing value (i.e., the user
> > missed putting 4 numbers) and (b) if the user provides too many
> > numbers (i.e., 5 instead of 4).
> *
> *   For searches and help try:
> *   http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
> *   http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/resources/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/faqs/resources/statalist-faq/
*   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/