Re: st: Creating a loop for placing observations in a macro without vallist

[Miles Grogger <mgrogger@gmail.com>]

Thanks Nick. This really helped a lot. The loop worked so I think I
will stick with that for now. Thank you very much again.

Miles

On Wed, Aug 7, 2013 at 10:11 AM, Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'd suggest looking towards Mata for tools here. I love Stata macros
> and use them all the time but in essence they are for string
> manipulation, and not so well suited for heaving data around.
> Nick
> njcoxstata@gmail.com
>
>
> On 7 August 2013 16:06, Miles Grogger <mgrogger@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Thanks Nick I'll test your suggestion and see if it works.
>>
>> The basis of my project is to take workbooks, located in one folder,
>> extract a sheet from them, and then save that sheet into a separate
>> folder.
>>
>> However, I also need to keep track of the filename of the workbooks in
>> question as well as the sheets being used, thus I am creating two
>> other workbooks; one to file the file names (let's call this
>> file_name.xls) and one to file the sheet names (let's call this
>> sheet_name.xls). From there, I want to construct a loop (as previously
>> mentioned) which will allow for me to collect the data from
>> file_name.xls, and the corresponding data from sheet_name.xls, and
>> then plug that information into the already written extraction loop to
>> extract the sheet and put it in a new folder.
>>
>> Here is a code to make things a bit clearer:
>>
>> local indir "/Users/milesgrogger/Dropbox/PAC_Facilities/FullChapters/1995-2011"
>> local outdir "/Users/milesgrogger/Desktop"
>> cd `outdir'
>> import excel chapters.xlsx, firstrow
>> reshape long state, i(stcode) j(year)
>> local fnames "`=state[1]' `=state[2]' `=state[3]' `=state[4]'
>> `=state[5]' `=state[6]'" /*where I would like a new loop*/
>>
>> clear
>> import excel sheets.xlsx, firstrow
>> reshape long chp, i(stcode) j(year)
>> local shnames "`=chp[1]' `=chp[2]' `=chp[3]' `=chp[4]' `=chp[5]'
>> `=chp[6]'" /*where I would like a new loop*/
>>
>> clear
>> local n_f : word count `fnames'
>> local n_sh : word count `shnames'
>> assert `n_f' == `n_sh'
>> cd `indir'
>> forval i=1/`n_f' {
>>  local x `: word `i' of `fnames''
>>  local y `: word `i' of `shnames''
>>  import excel `x', sheet(`y')
>>  cd `outdir'
>>  export excel `x'
>>  clear
>>  cd `indir'
>> }
>>
>> Best,
>> Miles
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 7, 2013 at 9:38 AM, Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> -vallist- (SSC) is a user-written program. The help file explains its
>>> history, starting out as something I did and as of 2003 being the
>>> responsibility of Patrick Joly. Whatever the details, you are asked to
>>> explain where user-written programs you refer to come from. However,
>>> -vallist- was designed to show the _distinct_ values of a variable and
>>> will not usually report them in the order in which they are observed
>>> in the data. If values are repeated, that is an extra problem.
>>>
>>> But you can write a loop easily enough, say
>>>
>>> forval i = 1/`=_N' {
>>>              local macname `macname' `=varname[`i']'
>>> }
>>>
>>> However, there are big reservations here.
>>>
>>> 1. If the variable is a string, you need to use quotation marks and be
>>> careful about spaces, etc.
>>>
>>> 2. If the variable is numeric with fractional parts, you are likely to
>>> lose information.
>>>
>>> 3. Why are you doing this any way? It sounds a very odd thing to want to do.
>>> Nick
>>> njcoxstata@gmail.com
>>>
>>>
>>> On 7 August 2013 15:16, Miles Grogger <mgrogger@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Hi Statalisters,
>>>>
>>>> I currently have a program that is allowing me to import an excel
>>>> file, reshape it, and then place observations in a macro by using the
>>>> command:
>>>>
>>>> local macname "`=varname[1]' `varname[2]'...etc."
>>>>
>>>> This works fine for a few observations, however I eventually want to
>>>> be able to place 544 observations in the macro. Is there a loop I
>>>> could use in order to make all of this more automatic?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Miles
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