Re: st: catching variable mismatch in the data

[Paul Byatta <paulbyatta@ymail.com>]

Hi Eric, 

What makes it work as I want (somehow) is placing the line of commands you shared outside of a foreach loop for insheeting multiple .txt files (in local filx) as in. 

            foreach x of local filx{
            drop _all
            insheet using "`x'"
            }
   
            cap ds v4??? 
            if `"`r(varlist)'"' != "" {
            display as err "The presence of of the following variables ""`r(varlist)'"" indicates there could be a mismatch between variable names in the data"
            exit
            }

Initially I was putting it inside the foreach loop as below.

            foreach x of local filx{
            drop _all
            insheet using "`x'"
            qui tostring _all, replace force
            cap ds v4??? 
            if `"`r(varlist)'"' != "" {
            display as err "The presence of of the following variables ""`r(varlist)'"" indicates there could be a mismatch between variable names in the data"
            exit
            }
            }
It would still be ideal to be exiting the dofile after insheeting file that has "v4???" variables but I can do with what works above for now.

Thanks
Paul






----- Original Message -----
From: Eric Booth <eric.a.booth@gmail.com>
To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
Cc: 
Sent: Friday, September 13, 2013 3:26 PM
Subject: Re: st: catching variable mismatch in the data

<>

It should read:

>            cap noi ds var4???

  not 

>            cap noi ds v4???



HTH, 
Eric




On Sep 13, 2013, at 7:21 AM, Paul Byatta <paulbyatta@ymail.com> wrote:

> 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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