Use the lastvar local to read v1 v2 v3 variables from insheet with numeric names

[Jill Caviglia-Harris]

I am reading in GIS data provided by a soil scientist on my research team that is exported to csv files with numeric names (years only). I have created code to read in a list of csv files from different regions and rename the variables from the v1, v2, v3..... vn format to the format varname_year (here SPI_year) using the variable labels in the name. The problem is that I'd like to set this up to run a loop from the first variable v2 to the last where the last variable name changes depending on the data I'm importing. The loc lastvar: word `c(k)' of `r(varlist)' does not read the last variable since it is not a valid name. Is there a way for Stata to recognize the last variable "vn" in this list? My code is as follows:

***** This does not work. Error: nothing found where name expected
cd "$mypath"
foreach region in region1 region2 {
insheet using "$mypath\SPI_`region'.csv", clear
qui des
loc lastvar: word `c(k)' of `r(varlist)'
foreach v of varlist v2-`lastvar' {
local x : variable label `v'
rename `v' SPI_`x'
}

***** This works but I added the name of the last variable
cd "$mypath"
foreach region in region1 region2 {
insheet using "$mypath\SPI_`region'.csv", clear

foreach v of varlist v2-v469 {
local x : variable label `v'
rename `v' SPI_`x'
}

My data look like this, where lotid is the unique identifier:
lotid v2 v3 v4 v5 v6 v7 v8
13008 1.7 2.34 0.75 0.80 1.23 3.78 0.85

[William Lisowski]

Your mistake is using

quietly describe

when you needed

quietly ds

or

quietly describe, varlist

As a consequence the local lastvar is undefined, and the foreach command is interpreted as

foreach v of varlist v2- {

leading directly to the error message you quoted in your code.

See

help des
help ds

for details on these similar commands.

[Bjarte Aagnes]

Alternative:

foreach v of varlist * {
    
    if ( "`v'" == "v1" ) continue
    local x : variable label `v'
    rename `v' SPI_`x'
}

For posting code see Stata list FAQ 12.3 How to use CODE delimiters.