Automating the editing of multiple do files in a folder

[Lukasz Cybulski]

Dear Statalister,

I have a do file ("old_file") that contains references to multiple file pathways:

do "C:\Users\Lukasz\Documents\Stata\do_file_1"

do "C:\Users\Lukasz\Documents\Stata\do_file_2"

do "C:\Users\Lukasz\Documents\Stata\do_file_3"

I wish to write some code that opens this do file and replaces any lines that contain a reference to a file pathway with the string "some_string"

Like so:

"some_string"

"some_string"

"some_string"

I have tried using filefilter, but I can't seem to make it general enough (e.g., file pathways might vary). If it could incorporate a wildcard function it would suit my purposes but I'm not sure if it does. Or at least I haven't been able to implement it.

I suspect that the solution lies in using the file command but I can't quite work it out. I have tried adapting some code from this thread (https://www.statalist.org/forums/for...file-command):

 // open new output file to receive edited do-file
 file open new_file using "new_file.do", write text replace
 // open do-file to edit
 file open old_file using "old_file.do", read text
 // read the first line, which won't be an end-of file
 file read old_file line
 // if the last line wasn't the last
 while r(eof)==0 {

     // if line contains "C:\" replace with some string
     if strpos(`line', "C:\") == 1 {
        file write new_file "some_string"' _newline
         }
     else {
         file write new_file `line' _newline
         }
     file read old_file line
}
file close new_file
file close old_file

But it returns "do"C:\Users\Lukasz\Documents\Stata\do files" invalid name r(198);"

From what I can figure out, it seems like the local macro `line' doesn't stores the entirety of the line from "old_file" in a string format, which prevents the string function from working. I have tried displaying/converting the the local macro `line' into a string using "local string_line : di %40s `line" and applying the string function to that macro instead, but that doesn't work. There might be other issues as well.Can this code be modified to achieve what I want or is there some other method?

Any help would be much appreciated

Lukasz