Looping through a list of strings; combining variables within strings

[Yuval Rittberg]

Hi everyone,
I have a series of household consumption datasets, each for every year, and I want to process each file a bit before merging them with other files.
I have two issues (examples follow bellow):
1. "use" command: it works when I explicitly state the file name, but not when I try to include a local variable in the path.
2. looping through a list of strings: this might be due to issue 1#, but I can't manage to define a list of strings - or an "an array of strings" in other programing languages - and loop through them.

The relevant do file goes as follows:

clear
set more off
 
local hshall f477fam_1997 f478fam_1998 f479fam_1999 f461fam_2000 f462fam_2001 f463fam_2002 f464fam_2003 f466fam_2004 f467fam_2005 n468fam_2006 f469fam_2007 f474fam_2008 f472fam_2009

foreach filename of local hshall {
 display `filename'
 use "${data}raw\households\`filename'.dta", clear //global "data" variable defined in the master do file

 if yearsur<2003 { //change variable names for 97'-02' data
  rename v1 rectype
  rename v2 hhnum
  rename v15 weight
  rename v13 typeloc
  }
    
 keep yearsur rectype hhnum weight typeloc
 save "${data}\inter\hsh\hsh`yearsur'.dta", clear
}

To emphasize issue 1#, the following code didn't work (I got r(111): "f477fam_1997 not found") but using the explicit file path "${data}raw\households\f477fam_1997.dta" does work.
(I tried putting hshall values in qoutes but it didn't work as well..)

This issue has agonized me for long time, although it honestly seems so trivial. I tried substantive googling but to no avail.
Thanks a lot!

[Nick Cox]

Using a backslash before a local macro reference is biting you. See e.g.

[U] 18.3.11 Constructing Windows filenames by using macros

Stata uses the \ character to tell its parser not to expand macros.

Windows uses the \ character as the directory path separator.

Mostly, there is no problem using a \ in a filename. However, if you are writing a program that
contains a Windows path in macro path and a filename in fname, do not assemble the final result as

`path'\`fname'

because Stata will interpret the \ as an instruction to not expand `fname'. Instead, assemble the
final result as

`path'/`fname'

Stata understands / as a directory separator on all platforms.

SJ-8-3 pr0042 . . . . . . . Stata tip 65: Beware the backstabbing backslash
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N. J. Cox
Q3/08 SJ 8(3):446--447 (no commands)
tip to use forward slash instead of backslash for
directory and file names
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf...867X0800800310

[Yuval Rittberg]

Using a backslash before a local macro reference is biting you. See e.g.



SJ-8-3 pr0042 . . . . . . . Stata tip 65: Beware the backstabbing backslash
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N. J. Cox
Q3/08 SJ 8(3):446--447 (no commands)
tip to use forward slash instead of backslash for
directory and file names
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf...867X0800800310

You're my hero. Thanks a lot!

[David Benson]

Yuval Rittberg , Nick Cox is everybody's hero :-) (link) :