Error using readreplace in Stata17 version

[Thein Zaw]

Hi All,
I'm now using the command: readreplace in Stata 17 version.
I got the following error, please suggest to me how to fix it.

[William Lisowski]

The end of help readreplace (a community contributed package available from SSC) tells us

For questions or suggestions, submit a GitHub issue or e-mail [email protected].

Following the link to Github shows that this issue has been raised there a few days ago. It also shows that the most recent update to the package was 7 years ago.

. which readreplace
/Users/lisowskiw/Library/Application Support/Stata/ado/plus/r/readreplace.ado
*! v1 by Ryan Knight 12jan2011
*! version 2.0.0 Matthew White 26aug2014

I will add that in a new session of Stata, running the readreplace command with no arguments seemed to succeed in loading the ado file.

. readreplace
using required
r(100);

. program dir
  ado     2433  readreplace.import_replacements
  ado     3275  readreplace
 mata     4632  readreplace.readreplace()
 mata      608  readreplace.binary_search_last()
 mata      608  readreplace.binary_search_first()
 mata      512  readreplace.pcomp()
 mata      188  readreplace.st_sortlist()
 mata     1284  readreplace.st_promote_type()
 mata     1124  readreplace.numeric_promote_types()
 mata      300  readreplace.st_copy_view()
 mata      292  readreplace.st_sviewL()
 mata      336  readreplace.st_anystrL()
      --------
         15592

[William Lisowski]

The code in post #2 was run with Stata 16, and shows that loading readreplace.ado leads to the compilation of several Mata functions, including one named st_sortlist. The error message in post #1 seems to suggest that in Stata 17 there is now defined a built-in st_sortlist() function, although I can find no evidence of it in the Stata 17 documentation index.

Let me suggest the following hack that may solve your problem. I cannot test this because I have yet to upgrade from Stata 16. Be sure your version of readreplace is the one I have, shown in post #2.

findfile readreplace.ado
doedit "`r(fn)'"

will open the installed copy of readreplace.ado in the Stata Do-file Editor.

Find the two instances of st_sortlist in the file and add an x to the end of the name.

From the File menu, save the edited do-file. Then

clear all
program dir
readreplace
program dir

might succeed and yield the following results.

. clear all

. program dir
  ado      242  clear.clearreturn
  ado      603  clear._clear_9
  ado     1770  clear
      --------
          2615


. readreplace
using required
r(100);

. program dir
  ado     2433  readreplace.import_replacements
  ado     3275  readreplace
 mata     4632  readreplace.readreplace()
 mata      608  readreplace.binary_search_last()
 mata      608  readreplace.binary_search_first()
 mata      512  readreplace.pcomp()
 mata      188  readreplace.st_sortlistx()
 mata     1284  readreplace.st_promote_type()
 mata     1124  readreplace.numeric_promote_types()
 mata      300  readreplace.st_copy_view()
 mata      292  readreplace.st_sviewL()
 mata      336  readreplace.st_anystrL()
  ado      242  clear.clearreturn
  ado      603  clear._clear_9
  ado     1770  clear
      --------
         18207


.

And if so, perhaps the readreplace command will now run as you expect it to.

[Leonardo Guizzetti]

William's advice is correct and he is also right that -st_sortlist()- is built-in with Stata 17 (though is undocumented). With some simple tests, Mata's -st_sortlist()- performs an analogous function as the custom function as part of the -readreplace- package: obtain r(sortlist) from -describe- and parse it into a string rowvector. The suggested modification will work across all supported versions, or if you only care about Stata 17, you can comment out the user-defined st_sortlist() and it will also work.