Breaking Execution of Stata

[Joshua Smith]

Dear All,

While running a dofile, Stata gives me the break error even though I'm not stopping the execution. The code I'm using is the following loop


local variables unemployment population gpd_growth ln_gpd_growth wages lagged_wages

foreach var of local variables {
local vlabel: variable label `var'
graph bar `var', over(label_region, label(angle(45)) sort(`var') reverse) ytitle("% `vlabel'") ///
graphregion(color(white) ilcolor(black)) plotregion(lcolor(black))
}

Thanks a lot for your help!

[Ariel Karlinsky]

The second line seems to have incorrect syntax. when your'e defining a local macro. what does that : stand for?

In general what I do when I need to debug such issues is to go from top to bottom - commenting out (or deleting) rows starting from the second one to see where the machinery breaks.

[Nick Cox]

Ariel: That syntax looks fine to me. see http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?extended_fcn

I am puzzled at a break here too.

[Ariel Karlinsky]

Always nice to learn something new

I tried replicating this break on a sample data, and wasn't able too as well:

. sysuse auto, clear
(1978 Automobile Data)

. local variables mpg price weight

. 
. 
. foreach var of local variables {
  2.         local vlabel: variable label `var'
  3.         graph bar `var', over(foreign, label(angle(45)) sort(`var') reverse) ytitle("% `vlabel'") ///
>         graphregion(color(white) ilcolor(black)) plotregion(lcolor(black)) name(`var')
  4. }

. 
end of do-file

you should probably post the output and/or provide us with some sample data that the error occurs in

[wbuchanan]

It seems to be an issue with the macro expansion:

sysuse auto.dta, clear
loc variables mpg price weight
foreach var of loc variables {
    loc vlabel `: variable label `var''
    gr bar `var', over(foreign, label(angle(45)) sort(`var') reverse) ///  
    ytitle(`"% `vlabel'"') graphr(color(white) ilcolor(black)) ///  
    plotr(lcolor(black)) name(`var')
}

On a tangental note, if Joshua Smith uses the same aesthetic commands repeatedly, it might be good to consider using brewscheme to generate a customized scheme file. This would at least help to remove additional points in the code where things could break down (e.g., could immediately rule out any graph/plot region subcommands since the scheme file would take care of those settings).