Re: st: passing macros to dictionary files

[Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com>]

I don't see the need for indirection here. Setting aside complexities
you may need elsewhere

forvalues x=1/3 {
     forvalues myreg=1/6 {
            infix str test 1-244 using 2014030`x'_0`myreg'.csv
            <do something with it>
     }
}

Nick
njcoxstata@gmail.com


On 23 April 2014 21:34, Douglas Levy <douglas_levy@post.harvard.edu> wrote:
> Hi All,
> I am trying to import a large number of files and aggregate them. My
> strategy was to create <for> loops that generate macros with the
> identifying file names (dates and cash register numbers). However, it
> seems that I can't pass those macros on to the dictionary file, even
> after converting the local macros from the <for> loops to global
> macros that I thought I could pass to the dictionary file.
>
> Here is an example of my code where I am trying to import data for the
> first three days in March for registers 1 to 6:
>
> forvalues x=1/3 {
> local x=string(`x',"%02.0f")
> forvalues myreg=1/6 {
> local myreg=string(`myreg',"%02.0f")
> global date_reg="201403`x'_`myreg'"
> infile using "mydictionary.dct"
> save "mynewfile.dta"
> }
> }
>
> and the dictionary file is:
>
> dictionary using "${date_reg}.csv" {str244 test}
>
> When I run this, I get an error message suggesting that Stata did not
> parse the macro at all:
>
> file ${date_reg}.csv not found
> dictionary invalid
>
> Thoughts? Is it impossible to pass a macro to a dictionary file? If
> so, is there another way to use a single dictionary for many different
> files? Thanks in advance for your advice!
> -Doug
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