st: Working with the name of the do file

[Eric DeRosia <ederosia@byu.edu>]

I want to make my Stata do files easier to use and maintain.  Is there a 
way to access the name of the do file from within the do file itself, 
perhaps as a macro or a system variable?  Let me give an example of what 
I mean.  I have a do file such as the following:

filename: step1.do
-------------------
   /// some Stata code here
log using "step1.log", replace
   /// more Stata code here
display "Output from step1.do"
   /// more Stata code here
graph export "step1.emf", replace as(emf)


In this example, if I want to re-use the code by copying the file and 
creating "step 2.do", my current workflow process is to edit the file 
and replace all the instances of "step1" in the file with "step2". 
Beyond the obvious inconvenience of editing the file every time I re-use 
the code, I occasionally forget to make the change, so running step2.do 
accidentally overwrites step1.log, etc.  I'm looking for a better way.

I think something like the following would solve my problem.  Is there a 
way to accomplish this in Stata?


filename: step1.do
-------------------
   /// some Stata code here
log using "`_name_of_the_do_file'.log", replace
   /// more Stata code here
display "Output from `_name_of_the_do_file'.do"
   /// more Stata code here
graph export "`_name_of_the_do_file'.emf", replace as(emf)

In the code above, I made up "`_name_of_the_do_file'" out of thin air to 
illustrate what I would like to do.  My hope is to find a string that 
resolves to "step1.do" based on the filename.  (In this example, I 
didn't deal with the fact that ".do" that would be at the end of the 
string, but it's clear to me how I would deal with that once I had 
access to the filename.)  Is there any way for Stata to get access to 
the name of the do file?

In case it matters, I'm using Stata 12 in a Windows environment.

Thank you in advance for any help you can offer on this!

- Eric

--
Eric DeRosia, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Business Management
Marriott School of Management
Brigham Young University
671 TNRB
Provo, Utah 84602

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