Wild card for a variable list

[John MacDonald]

I want to delete a bunch of files that have the number 750/773 at the end after combining them all. The files star with Kde_ but have additional words like Kde_theft, Kde_theftday, etc. (Kde_theft750/Kde_theft770).

How can I use a wildcard to prevent having to write each variable name down? So instead of having to write out all of Kde_theft, Kde_theftday, etc. ?

foreach i of numlist 750/773 {
foreach j in Kde_theft {
rm `j'`i'.dta
}
}

[Clyde Schechter]

There is no wildcard for filenames that will cover a numeric range. But you can accomplish your task without having to make a long list by starting with a wildcard to determine all files starting with Kde_, and then filtering to those that end in a number between 750 and 773:

local start: dir "." files "Kde_*.dta"

foreach f of local start {
    local finish = substr("`f'", -7, 3)
    if inrange(real(`"`finish'"'), 750, 773) {
        rm `"`f'"'
    }
}

[Nick Cox]

I think

if inrange("`finish'", "750", "773")

should work too.

[John MacDonald]

Clyde your code worked perfectly! Thank you.