Infix problem (using invalid varname)

[Greg Saldutte]

Hello,

I am trying to read in fixed width data from a .txt file. I am following the documentation from help infix. Here is my code:

infix dictionary using Status.txt {
    id 1-9
    name 10-32
    filedate 33-40
    agency 41-44
    station 45-53
    age 54-59
    years since degree 60-65
    education level 66-67
    pay plan 68-69
}

infix using Status.txt, clear

This returns the error "using invalid varname." The infix documentation indicates that it is necessary to include "using" after "dictionary," so I do not understand why it is interpreting using as a variable name. Alternatively, I get the error message "Status.txt invalid name when I delete "using" from the first line of code.

I have also tried to avoid this problem by coding in a different way:

infix id 1-9 name 10-32 filedate 33-40 agency 41-44 station 45-53 age 54-59 yearssincedegree ///
60-65 educationlevel 66-67 pay plan 68-69 using 1973-09-to-2014-06\dod\status\Status.txt

When I do this Stata says that the dictionary is invalid.

Thank you.

[Rich Goldstein]

you cannot have spaces in variable names in Stata; you can use underscores so, e.g., change "pay plan" to pay_plan"

[Saloni Negi]

Hello. I am facing a similar issue. I am trying to extract data using the infix command using the code below and I get the error " using invalid varname".

infix dictionary using R75252L01.TXT{
byte centre 1-3
byte fsu 4-8
byte round 9-10
byte sch 11-13
byte sampl 14-14
byte sector 15-15
byte nssregion 16-18
byte district 19-20
byte stratum 21-22
byte sstratum 23-24
byte sround 25-25
byte ssample 26-26
byte fod 27-30
byte hamlet_grp 31-31
byte sss 32-32
byte hhsno 33-34
byte level 35-36
byte filler 37-41
byte insno 42-43
byte resp_cd 44-44
byte surv_cd 45-45
byte sub_cd 46-46
byte emp1 47-50
byte emp2 51-54
byte emp3 55-58
byte dts 59-64
byte dtd 65-70
byte time_can 71-73
byte no_invs 74-74
byte r1 75-75
byte r2 76-76
byte r3 77-77
byte r4 78-78
byte blank 79-126
byte nss 127-129
byte nsc 130-132
byte mlt 133-142
}

Running infix in alternate way given below works just fine. But since I have a huge dataset I wish to use the above format. I don't understand why I'm getting this error.

infix byte centre 1-3 byte fsu 4-8 byte round 9-10 byte sch 11-13 byte sampl ......... byte mlt 133-142 using R75252L01.TXT

[Leonardo Guizzetti]

Add a space before {.

[Saloni Negi]

Still getting the same error even with space before {.