Exporting variable label with putexcel

[Ioana Botea]

Hello,

I'm exporting descriptive statistics using putexcel in Stata 14 and have been struggling to export variable labels. Based on advice on this forum and elsewhere, I'm using the following code but get an error "(: expression must be enclosed in ()".

local row = 4
foreach x of varlist $varlist {
...
local varlabel : var label `x'
putexcel A`row' = ("`varlabel'")
...
}

I've checked and the label is correctly stored in varlabel (display "`varlabel'") and the putexcel command works well when exporting a phrase (putexcel A`row'=("label of variable")). Do you know what the issue might be here?

Many thanks,

Ioana

[William Lisowski]

Perhaps running

macro list varlist
describe $varlist

and posting the commands and their output here would allow us to see the values of your variable names and variable labels, which might suggest the problem.

Better yet, create a reproducible example that leaves out all the stuff you represented as ... and then run that example and copy and paste the results here.

putexcel set filename
local row = 4
macro list varlist
foreach x of varlist $varlist {
describe `x'
local varlabel : var label `x'
putexcel A`row' = ("`varlabel'")
local row = `row'+1
}

For some examples I came up with, this is how it runs.

 putexcel set ~/Downloads/foo.xlsx, replace
Note: file will be replaced when the first putexcel command is issued

. local row = 4

. macro list varlist
varlist:        x1 x2 x3 x4

. foreach x of varlist $varlist {
  2. describe `x'
  3. local varlabel : var label `x'
  4. putexcel A`row' = ("`varlabel'")
  5. local row = `row'+1
  6. }

              storage   display    value
variable name   type    format     label      variable label
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
x1              float   %9.0g                 This is a variable label
file /Users/lisowskiw/Downloads/foo.xlsx saved

              storage   display    value
variable name   type    format     label      variable label
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
x2              float   %9.0g                 This is a variable's label
file /Users/lisowskiw/Downloads/foo.xlsx saved

              storage   display    value
variable name   type    format     label      variable label
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
x3              float   %9.0g                 This is (a) variable label
file /Users/lisowskiw/Downloads/foo.xlsx saved

              storage   display    value
variable name   type    format     label      variable label
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
x4              float   %9.0g                 This "is" a variable label
file /Users/lisowskiw/Downloads/foo.xlsx saved

.

Section 12.1 of the Statalist FAQ is particularly pertinent here

12.1 What to say about your commands and your problem

Say exactly what you typed and exactly what Stata typed (or did) in response. N.B. exactly!

[Ioana Botea]

Thank you, William! It turns out I was missing the describe `x' command before defining the local. I'll make sure to include all the relevant code and output in my next post.