What is the best way to tie a data file to a do file?

[Walter Dallaway]

I usually have my data file in the same project directory as the do file. And I execute the do file normally via

do "/full/path/to/the/project/directory/mydofile.do"

How can I load the data file in my do file without knowing the absolute path reference to the data file? I tried

use "./mydatafile.dta"

but this doesn't work reliably, because the current working directory is not set to the directory the do-file is in.

What's the best way to deal with this to make project folders portable in the file system and between machines?

Many thanks for all suggestions.

[Robert Picard]

One approach is to use project, a user-written program available from SSC. To install it, type in Stata's Command window

ssc install project

and then type help project to read the help file.

Here are snippets from the help file:

project automates the execution of do-files, skipping do-files with unchanged dependencies. With project, you accumulate and organize all Stata code related to a project, from the early data management steps to the final analysis, in a web of interconnected do-files, all managed from a master do-file. Each time you build a project (i.e. run the master do-file), project knows what has changed and only runs do-files that are affected by these changes.

[...]

The directory where the master do-file resides becomes the project directory. If you defined a project called "abc", then typing project abc, build will run the master do-file "abc.do" located in the project directory irrespective of Stata's current working directory.

[...]

project automatically changes Stata's working directory to the directory of the current do-file. This means that you can always access files in the do-file's directory by file name only. Files elsewhere but still within the project directory can be accessed using a file path that is relative to the project directory (see example 2). A project that never uses full path names can be easily shared with others or moved to a new directory without having to update any file path.

With project, all files related to a project are located in the master directory (folder). A well organized project has several sub-directories (e.g. "data", "tables", "figures", etc.), and these can also contain any number of nested sub-directories. In most cases, you load and save files by filename only as these are in the same directory as the do-file that refers to them. If a do-file needs to refer to a document that's located in another directory, you can use a path that is relative to the project's master directory. For example, if "final_data.dta" is located in the "data" directory, a do-file within the "tables" directory would include something like:

    project, doinfo
    local pdir "`r(pdir)'"                            // the project's main dir.
    local dofile "`r(dofile)'"                        // do-file's stub name
    
    
* Load the final data

    project, uses("`pdir'/data/final_data.dta")    
    use "`pdir'/data/final_data.dta"

[...]

* save the table

    project, creates("`dofile'.doc")

With project, you can work on a project that's stored on Dropbox from different computers and not have to worry about file paths or different operating systems. Because the project is completely self-contained, you can submit the whole directory to a public repository (if a Journal requires publication of data and code) and anyone will be able to download and run the whole thing without having to change anything to the code.

[Sergiy Radyakin]

Walter, first install dodata module:

net from http://www.radyakin.org/stata/dodata/

Then instead of your

do "/full/path/to/the/project/directory/mydofile.do"

write

dodata "/full/path/to/the/project/directory/mydofile.do"

For example (web):

dodata http://www.radyakin.org/stata/dodata/auto.do

or another example (local) if both auto.ado and auto.dta are saved in c:\test

dodata c:\test\auto.do

Inside your do file refer to `1' to load the data file with the same name as the do-file.

Best, Sergiy Radyakin

[Walter Dallaway]

Thanks for the suggestions. But this looks like to much install depnedencies for this issue. What I do, is I reference the data file via "./data.dta" and if I run the do file and the data cannot be found I cd manually into the directory for now.

[Jesse Wursten]

I start each dofile with

global path_start = "<root folder>"

All references to dofiles and datafiles are then some form of

do "$path_start/Dofiles/<dofilename>
use "$path_start/Data/<dataname>

As certain folders get referenced many times, it's often easy to define e.g.

global path_data = "$path_start/Data"

If you have multiple users working on the same project in different (computer) locations, you can start with something akin to

if "`c(username)'" == "Jesse Wursten" global path_start = "C:/MyProjects"
if "`c(username)'" == "Someone Else" global path_start = "Z:/Stata stuff""