Question about macro syntax in stata

[Michael Duarte Goncalves]

Hi everyone,

I have a quick question. Could anyone explain me the difference between these two local macros in stata:

***
* Creation of paths and folders
local project_dir "//hes-nas-prairie.hes.adhes.hesge.ch/Home_M/michael.duartego/Documents/Desktop/Analyse"
cd `project_dir'
*
* making folders in the current directory
local d `" "rawdata" "Figures" "tables" "do_files" "master" "'
*
foreach folder in `d' {
di `"`folder'"'
cap  mkdir `"`project_dir'/`folder'"'  
}

and

***
* Creation of paths and folders
local project_dir "//hes-nas-prairie.hes.adhes.hesge.ch/Home_M/michael.duartego/Documents/Desktop/Analyse"
cd `project_dir'
*
* making folders in the current directory
local d ` rawdata Figures tables do_files master'
*
foreach folder in `d' {
di `folder'
cap  mkdir `project_dir'/`folder'  
}

The macro in red is not working. But I just want to understand better why I have to use double quotes in my first example, in order to create properly my folder's names.
Thank you in advance.

Best,

[Maarten Buis]

A string is always contained in either double quotes (" ") or compound double quotes (`" "') but never in single quotes (` '). The later indicates a local macro and not a string. So the line
local d ` rawdata Figures tables do_files master' means that the local macro d should contain the content of a local macro with the name rawdata Figures tables do_files master . Since presumably no such macro exists, the local macro d now contains an empty string.

[Michael Duarte Goncalves]

Maarten Buis:

Thank you very much for your answer.
I understand now why I persisted in my mistake.