Re: st: catching variable mismatch in the data

[Paul Byatta <paulbyatta@ymail.com>]

Hi Eric, 


Thanks for the help. 


The correction you recommend seems to be working well, ie it is catching the presence of the variable/s as I want.


The only hitch is that the dofile doesnt exit when the variables v4??? are present, despite there being an -exit- command. It displays the error message but continues with the rest of the commands in the dofile. What could I be doing wrong? Below is how I have incorporated the command lines.


           cap noi ds v4???
            if `"`r(varlist)'"' != "" {
            display as err "There is a mismatch between variable names in the data"
            exit
             }
   

Thanks
Paul



----- Original Message -----
From: Eric A. Booth <eric.a.booth@gmail.com>
To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
Cc: 
Sent: Friday, September 13, 2013 2:07 PM
Subject: Re: st: catching variable mismatch in the data

<>
Hi Paul:
It appears you want to stop your do file if there is any variable
present that has a variable name of the pattern var4???.
If you find them, then you want to stop your do-file (based on the use
of the error message and -exit- in your loop).

Your loop is failing for a few reasons.  First , var4### is illegal;
instead, you want var4???.  Also, the second line with 'capture
confirm...' is irrelevant when  you start the loop with 'foreach x1 of
varlist var4??? { '  because if there were no var4??? in your dataset
the loop would stop there and say 'variable 4??? not found', having
never reached the 'capture confirm...' lines nested below.

Instead, I think you can put these 2 lines in your do-file to get the
functionality you seek:

**
cap noi ds var4???
if `"`r(varlist)'"' != "" exit
**

- Eric

On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 5:35 AM, Paul Byatta <paulbyatta@ymail.com> wrote:
> Hi Statalist
>
> I writing lines of commands that will alert me whenever there is a mismatch between variable names. I know there is a mismatch when the dataset contains a foreign variable name. I also know the foreign variable name/s will take the prefix of "var" and end with with a number greater than 4000 (because the total non-foreign variables are 4000).
>
> The commands I have so far
>
>             foreach x1 of varlist var4###{
>             capture confirm variable `x1'
>               if _rc != 0 {
>                 display as err "There is a mismatch between variable names in the data"
>                 exit _rc
>               }
>
>
> I know based on an earlier discussion on this list (Re: st: -confirm variable- does not accept varlist (wildcards)) that "capture confirm" command doesnt accept varlist, but does somebody have any alternative suggestions on how to programmatically achieve my goal above.
>
>
> Thanks
> Paul
>
>
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