Error with tab2xl

[Stephen Okiya]

Hi,

I am using tab2xl command in Stata 15 and would want to save the excel file using today's date. Below is the code am using

gl date = c(current_date)
sysuse auto, clear 
tab2xl foreign using "Output_$date", row(1) col(1)

Please let me know a possible work around on this.]

Thanks in advance!

Stephen.

[William Lisowski]

You don't tell us what your problem is. It is

. tab2xl foreign using "Output_$date" , row(1) col(1)
invalid 'Mar' 
r(198);

which suggests that the tab2xl command (user written, from the Stata blog) does not correctly handle quoted filenames with embedded spaces, since c(current_date) returns (as I write this)

. display c(current_date)
27 Mar 2019

The following example shows working code. I changed your global macro $date to a local macro `fdate' because local macros are better practice when a global macro is not specifically needed.

. local fdate = strofreal( daily(c(current_date),"DMY") , "%td" )

. sysuse auto, clear 
(1978 Automobile Data)

. tab2xl foreign using Output_`fdate', row(1) col(1)
Note: file will be modified when putexcel close command is issued
file Output_27mar2019.xlsx saved

.

[Stephen Okiya]

Thanks William Lisowski for the help. This is much appreciated. I am sincerely sorry for not elaborating my problem.