Issue with reghdfe within a program

[Vincenzo Alfano Viola]

Dear all,

I am having trouble with some debugging. I created a program to run some regressions using reghdfe and ivreghdfe, please see below a simplified version of it.

  capture program drop reg_prog
  program reg_prog
  syntax varlist( max=1) [if] [, absorb(varlist) filename(string) controls(namelist) het_var(namelist) ]
  preserve
  if `"`if'"' != "" {
  keep `if'
  }
    di `interaction'
  global outcome `1'
  global fixed_effects `absorb'
  global controls_reg `controls'
    eststo clear
  estimates clear
    qui reghdfe $outcome c.treatment##c.`het_var', a($fixed_effects) vce(cl facility_cod)
  qui sum `e(depvar)' if e(sample)
  qui estadd scalar control_mean= r(mean)
  qui estadd scalar control_std= r(sd)
  add_scalars_hiv
  qui estimates store model1, title("OLS")
    restore
  end
 

I then run the following loop to execute the regressions:

  local names " "name1" "name2" "name3" "name4" "
  local i = 1
  foreach var in var1 var2 cvar dvar {
  global outcome `var'
  local q: word `i' of `names'
  dis `i' " - " "`q'"
  
  reg_prog $outcome, controls($controls) absorb(abs1 abs2) filename("tables/tab_`q'_interaction.tex") het_var(hetvar)
    local ++i
  }
 

However, I get the following error:
invalid 'absorb'.

What am I not seeing?
Thanks in advance

[George Ford]

global fixed_effects "`absorb'"

[Vincenzo Alfano Viola]

Thanks George for your answer! However, I still get an error. I also tried adding the variables I want to absorb directly into the reghdfe command inside the program instead of using the global fixed_effect, but I still get the same error.
I find it weird because when I run the reghdfe command outside of the program I do not get any error.

[George Ford]

sysuse auto, clear

capture program drop reg_prog
program reg_prog
syntax varlist (max=1) [if] [, absorb(namelist) filename(string) controls(namelist) het_var(varlist) ]
tokenize `varlist'
local outcome = "`1'"
di "`outcome'" 
di "`absorb'"
di "`controls'"
reghdfe `outcome' `controls' , absorb(`absorb') cluster(`absorb')
end
 
reg_prog price, controls(mpg weight) absorb(rep78 foreign) het_var(foreign)

[Vincenzo Alfano Viola]

Thank you! The "tokenize `varlist' " command was the key