Looping through a list from a file

[Moqi Groen-Xu]

Dear Statalist members,

I would like to loop through a list of approximately 500 items. How do I read in those items to create a local list?

For context (perhaps there is a different solution to the problem): I'm importing excel files that sometimes start in row2, sometimes in row3. I read in all of them assuming that they start in row2 and created a file with those that did not:

local files : dir "E:\tomerge" files "*.xlsx"

foreach file in `files' {
import excel using `file', cellrange(A2) firstrow allstring clear
local VARIABLE ="`file'"
display "`VARIABLE'"
g name = "`VARIABLE'"
duplicates drop
append using `master', force
duplicates drop
save `master', replace
}

preserve

drop if Issuer !=""
duplicates drop name, force
keep name
save missing, replace

Now I would like to read these missing files into a new local list so that I can import them - but how?

foreach file in `missing' {
import excel using `file', cellrange(A3) firstrow allstring clear

I'm using Stata/MP17.0 on Windows.

Thank you in advance,
Moqi

[Clyde Schechter]

Now I would like to read these missing files into a new local list so that I can import them - but how?

use missing, clear
levelsof name, local(missing)

will place a list of the missing files in local macro missing.

See -help levelsof- for more information about this extremely useful command.