quotes: do file vs command line

[William Paredes]

Greetings!

I think I have a problem with quoting at the command line vs a do file?
My do file contains:

local lname _summary.csv
local lid PF006
import delimited "`lid'`lname’”, clear
<lots of code>
gen subject_id = “”
replace subject_id =`"`lid'"'
<more code>

Unfortunately, the do file always returns a blank for subject_id
In troubleshooting, I stop the do file after the ‘ gen subject_id =“” ‘ line.
Then, when I issue the very same replace command from the command line, PF006 is correctly returned.
I’ve tried all permutations of quoting to no avail. I’ve tried to concatenate quotes and use char(34) without luck. Can you help?

Regards,
-bill

William Paredes
Clinical Research Coordinator
Dept of Medicine; Div of Nephrology
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
1300 Morris Park Avenue
Block Bldg, Rm 612
Bronx NY 10461
[718] 430-3088 (office)
[718] 430-2044 (fax)

[William Lisowski]

Welcome to Statalist, William.

My guess is that, with your code displayed in the Do-file Editor window, you selected the first few lines and submitted them, then selected subsequent lines, and submitted them, and so forth.

The problem is, when you submit selected lines from the Do-file Editor, it writes them to a temporary do-file and submits that file. (You'll see that in the Results window, where your output is preceded by a do command with a meaningless name.) The local macro is defined, but once the temporary do-file ends, the local macro vanishes. So later you are effectively executing

gen subject_id = “”
replace subject_id =`""'

These two commands would result in something like the following in your Results window or log file

(74 missing values generated)
(0 real changes made)

The solution is to run the entire contents of the Do-file Editor window at the same time.

[William Paredes]

Thanks for your help. You solved the mystery.
-bill