Project organisation in Stata

Adrian Spoerri and Marcel Zwahlen

Department of Social and Preventive Medicine

University of Berne, Switzerland

Research seminar, 15th January 2007

Project organisation in Stata

• Organisation of Stata-folders• Do-files

– profile.do– 00_run_first.do

• Global macros• Do-file templates• Redirection of output

Stata folders

• System folders• often: c:/stata9 or c:/programme/stata9• updates and adofiles: c:/stata9/ado• => never save anything in these folders

yourself!• other system folders:

see sysdir (updates, ado-files)

Project folders

• Project folders

e.g. d:/projects/bag/std/stata..

or d:/data/snc/stata..• good practice to seperate programs and data

General folders

• general Stata folder: e.g. d:/projects/stata(for copy of profile.do, lic file)

• d:/projects/temp

Jumping around directories

• Most common commands– cd or pwd: shows current path– dir: lists files and folders in current path– cd: changes directory, eg. cd stata/do

Hint

Forward or back slash?• Windows systems: \• Mac: /• and Stata?

– both are possible– in do-files: always use: /

Pathways

• absoulte path: c:/seminar070115/stata/data• relative path

– relative to what? check pwd or cd– change directory to project, e.g.

cd c:/seminar070115– then use relative path:

cd stata/data

Is there a third way?

• Use shortcuts!• Why?

– define path to project only once– valid for all do-files of same project– makes collaboration of several persons on

the same project easy– compatible with ISPM standard

Project folders

c:/seminar070115

/origdata

/stata

/data

/do

/graphres

/orig

/log

/textres

non-Stata files, e.g. mdb, dbf, xls, txt

Project folders

c:/newproject

/origdata

/stata

/data

/do

/graphres

/orig

/log

/textres

Do-files

• most simple: list of Stata commands• a bit more sophisticated: complex files with

loops, programs and subroutine-calls• „Basic do-file“:

c:/stata9/profile.do => general settings• runs each time Stata is starting

Profile.do

set scrollbufsize 500000 /* enlarge results window buffer */

set memory 100M /* sets memory to 100 megabyte */

set varlabelpos 20 /* sets position of label in variable

window */

* hard drive in use

global dr="d"

Macros

• global macro:– is a substitute valid during the whole stata

session– global dd = "gender"– regress bp $dd– regress bp gender

• local macro: different syntax

Profile.do (2)

set scrollbufsize 500000 /* enlarge results window buffer */

set memory 100M /* sets memory to 100 megabyte */

set varlabelpos 20 /* sets position of label in variable

window */

* hard drive in use

global dr = "c"

*or

*global dr = "d"

00_run_first.do

• first do-file in each project• sets project-specific directories• start it with double click in the explorer• or start it using a shortcut (a global macro

again)

qui {*define name of projectglobal np="Testproject for research seminar"*define path to new project, here without drive letterglobal pp="/seminar070115"*general project path settingsglobal dd="$dr:$pp/stata/data"global dod="$dr:$pp/stata/do"global gd="$dr:$pp/stata/graphres"global ld="$dr:$pp/stata/log"global od="$dr:$pp/stata/orig"global td="$dr:$pp/stata/textres"

}display "settings ready for: $np"cd $dr:$pp/stata

00_run_first.do (2)

global dd="$dr:$pp/stata/data"

global dd="d:$pp/stata/data"

global dd="d:/seminar070115/stata/data"

in analysis:

use $dd/example_1.dta

00_run_first.do (3)

qui {*define name of projectglobal np="Testproject for research seminar"*define path to new project, here without drive letterglobal pp="/seminar070115"*general project path settingsglobal dd="$dr:$pp/stata/data"global dod="$dr:$pp/stata/do"global gd="$dr:$pp/stata/graphres"global ld="$dr:$pp/stata/log"global od="$dr:$pp/stata/orig"global td="$dr:$pp/stata/textres"

}display "settings ready for: $np"cd $dr:$pp/stata

00_run_first.do (4)

How to start new project

1. Prepare Stata subdirecories (e.g. data, do, etc)

2. adapt 00_run_first.do for new project(define name, define project path)

3. execute 00_run_first.do

4. open template do-file, start writing commands in do-file

=> preparation of new project: <5 minutes

do-file templatecapture log closeglobal logfile="$ld/cr_name_01.log"log using "$logfile",replace

/* - template of do-file- describe here the main purpose of the do-fileauthors: a.spoerri / m.zwahlendate: 14.1.07*/

use $od/dataset.dta, clear

*further commands

save $dd/dataset_prep.dta, replacelog closeexit

Example of do-filecapture log closeglobal logfile="$ld/cr_exp_01.log"log using "$logfile",replace

/* example of do-file using global macros authors: a.spoerri / m.zwahlendate: 14.1.07*/clear

Example of do-file (2)

*load data

use $od/example_1.dta, clear

*generate variable

gen index=(sex==1 & agegrp==50)

tab agegrp index

*save new file

save $dd/example_2, replace

log close

exit

Master do-file

• generally: seperate do-files where you create a new dataset (cr's) and do-files, which just analyse an existing dataset (an's)

• for each project create a master do-file• e.g. master_seminar070115.do:

do "$dod/cr_sem01.do" /* creates cleaned data file*/do "$dod/an_sem01.do" /* descriptive analyses */

Redirecting Stata to Word

• create a text file with your results in Stata• link this file to a Word document• update text file (e.g. if data change)• update Word doc

Profile.do tr_on

* redirect part of the output to textres

capture program drop tr_on

program define tr_on

version 8

set logtype text

set linesize 120

quietly capture log close

local name="$td"+"/"+"`1'"+".txt"

quietly capture log using "`name'" , replace

end

Profile.do tr_off

* cancel redirection capture program drop tr_offprogram define tr_offversion 8

quietly capture log closequietly capture log using "$logfile" , appendset linesize 175

end

Example of an_seminar_01.do

*description of diagnosesforvalues z= 0/1 {

use "$dd/example_2.dta", clearkeep if sex==`z'tr_on example_demogr_`z'

tab age educ, rowtr_off}

Update Stata output in Word

• useful for technical reports• output looks like Stata result • output is logged in folder .../textres• create link in Word file:

INCLUDETEXT "C:\\seminar070115\\Stata\\textres\\example_demogr_0.txt" \c AnsiText

Stata on the intranet

• Shortly, the following files will be available:– ppt of our presentation– template of profile.do– template of standard do-file– template of 00_run_first.do– standard folder structure for new projects