Importing data conditional on something

[Isabela Campos]

Hi everyone!

I am facing the following problem:
I want to import an excel that is created by another do-file.

However, in days when I don't receive new data, this excel is not created.
Therefore, if I simply try to run:

import excel "this excel - ${today}.xlsx" , ///
firstrow clear

I will receive an error all the days that I haven't received data (which means there would be no excel for ${today}.

Is there any way I can conditional the import of the excel on the existence of the file?
For example, with an "IF"?

Thanks in advance!!
Isabela

[William Lisowski]

Perhaps this untested example code will start you in a useful direction.

if fileexists("this excel - ${today}.xlsx") == 0 {
    display "no data for you today!"
    local newdata = 0
}
else {
    import excel "this excel - ${today}.xlsx" , firstrow clear
    local newdata = 1
}

[Jared Greathouse]

Hey Isabela, welcome to Statalist.

I've actually ran into this issue before (pretty recently I think), where I download a dataset (CDC Data, was it?) using Python. I couldn't have a fixed name for it because the file name changed by the day, so it would be like 090921-blah-blah, 091021-blah-blah...

To circumnavigate this, building on the code above, I would do something like

local files : dir "`c(pwd)'" files "*.xlsx"

cap conf f `files'
 if _rc ~= 0 {    

display "Nope! No data for you today!"

}

else {    

import exc "`files'" , firstrow clear

display "Good job!!!!"

}

I will be upfront that my code assumes a few things: That you're always importing an xlsx file, and that the global macro $today you made is not relevant elsewhere in your programs. Additionally, I presume that you have no other files with the similar extension in your working directory at the same time. Isabela Campos