Defining a program inside another program

[Dan Acland]

I am trying to define a program (call it prog_b) inside another program (call it prog_a). Something like this:

program define prog_a
program define prog_b
[commands I want prog_b to execute]
end
end

The reason is that I need to use prog_b in a forvalues loop and I need it to function slightly differently in each loop, so in each loop I want to run prog_a to redefine prog_b so that in each loop I can use the appropriately modified version of prog_b for that loop.

The problem is that when I run the code above, in order to define the two functions, I get an error message that says "command end is unrecognized."

[Nick Cox]

You can't nest program definitions so far as I know. In effect Stata is telling you that.

Your approach would presumably need to include dropping of the original program each time after the first, if I understand correctly.

You can define two or more programs separately in an .ado or .do file.

Wanting a program to run differently is a matter of feeding it different arguments, say through variables, qualifiers, weights and options. An awkward way to do that would be to change a global macro before it is called, which I don't recommend.

Often a good approach is to call Mata code within a loop.

[daniel klein]

Duplicate post. Sorry.

[daniel klein]

It might help to provide a little more detail. What is the underlying problem that you want to solve. Your current approach appears strange and overly complicated.