Invalid file specification

[Tharshini Thangavelu]

Hi,

Does anyone has experienced this previously ? I am using StataMP 14 on win7 working with panel data.
I save different files accordingly:

tempfile r1r2
save `r1r2'

----
-----
tempfile r3r4
save `r3r4'

Now, I would like to merge these two files

use `r1r2' // executing this command I get "Invalid file specification" (I don't understand why it is invalid specification)
merge CHILDID using `r3r4'

Any help would be appreciated !


Thanks!

[Marcos Almeida]

Hello Tharshini,

Welcome to the Stata Forum.

I suggest you first define the working directory, before saving the file and merging data sets.

Best,

Marcos

[William Lisowski]

Welcome to Statalist!

I am going to start by assuming that your two tempfile commands were run within a do-file that you have open in the do-file editor.

The important thing to keep in mind is that local macros (and similarly the temporary files defined with the tempfile command) vanish when the do-file within which they were created ends. So when the do-file ended, the local macros r1r2 and r3r4 were no longer defined. If your use command was run in a different do-file than the two tempfile commands, or run from the command window, then r1r2 and r3r4 were no longer defined. Your

use `r1r2'

then was, after substituting nothing for `r1r2',

use

which generates exactly the error message you encountered.

A slightly more subtle way of having this happen can occur when the tempfile and use commands are in the same do-file, but instead of running the entire do-file at the same time, it is run by selecting a few lines at a time and running them. If you look carefully at your results window, you'll see that those few lines are copied into a temporary do-file and run, so even though all the commands are in the same window in the do-file editor, they are run as separate do-files.

[Tharshini Thangavelu]

Hi,

Thanks for a quick reply ! yes, your assumption is correct.
It seems like your suggestion, i.e. to run all codes in one execution works well but it does not work when selecting few command lines at a time.