_= invalid name r(198)

[Christopher Ford]

Hi, I'm just getting back into Stata after a long illness, so I could use some help. I'm trying to run the following code to output proportions to an excel file. It runs through A`'j' but fails at C`j' and returns error code _=invalid name r(198). Can anyone suggest a fix?

Here's my code:

local j = 2
foreach v of varlist agecat gender education incomecat race {
svy,subpop(if child==1): prop `v',over(year)
matrix results = r(table)
matrix results = results[1...,1...]'
putexcel set "$results\Table 1.xlsx", sheet("Categorical vars") modify
putexcel A`j' = "`v'"
local l = rowsof(results)
forvalues `i' = 0(1)`l' {
local i = `i' + 1
local j = `j' + 1
putexcel C`j' = results[`i',1] J`j' = results[`i',2]
/*Above is the point of failure at C`j'*/

local i = `i' + 1
putexcel D`j' = results[`i',1] K`j' = results[`i',2]

local i = `i' + 1
putexcel E`j' = results[`i',1] L`j' = results[`i',2]

local i = `i' + 1
putexcel F`j' = results[`i',1] M`j' = results[`i',2]

local i = `i' + 1
putexcel G`j' = results[`i',1] N`j' = results[`i',2]

local i = `i' + 1
putexcel H`j' = results[`i',1] O`j' = results[`i',2]
}
local j = `j' + 2
}

[Andrew Musau]

forvalues `i' = 0(1)`l' {

You want

forvalues i = 0(1)`l' {

[William Lisowski]

I think your error(s) lie within these commands.

local l = rowsof(results)
forvalues `i' = 0(1)`l' {
local i = `i' + 1

In particular

forvalues `i' = ...

will substitute the value of the (undefined) local macro i for `i' effectively executing the command

forvalues  = ...

with the following sort of result.

. clear all

. local i

. forvalues `i' = 1(1)2 {
  2. display "hello"
  3. }
_= invalid name
r(198);

Syntactically, you wanted

forvalues i = ...

With that said, you do not want the local macro i to be the index of your loop, and then to change its value within the loop, do you?

[Christopher Ford]

Hi Andrew and William, thank you for your help with this. You were right about i vs. `i'. I made the change and was able to get the code to run. Here is the final code:

local i = 0
local j = 2
foreach v of varlist agecat gender education incomecat race {
svy,subpop(if child==1): prop `v',over(year)
matrix results = r(table)
matrix results = results[1...,1...]'
putexcel set "$results\Table 1.xlsx", sheet("Categorical vars") modify
putexcel A`j' = "`v'"
local l = rowsof(results)
forvalues i = 0(6)`l' {
/*0(number of columns of the table)`total number of rows in matrix'*/

local i = `i' + 1
local j = `j' + 1
putexcel C`j' = results[`i',1] J`j' = results[`i',2]

local i = `i' + 1
putexcel D`j' = results[`i',1] K`j' = results[`i',2]

local i = `i' + 1
putexcel E`j' = results[`i',1] L`j' = results[`i',2]

local i = `i' + 1
putexcel F`j' = results[`i',1] M`j' = results[`i',2]

local i = `i' + 1
putexcel G`j' = results[`i',1] N`j' = results[`i',2]

local i = `i' + 1
putexcel H`j' = results[`i',1] O`j' = results[`i',2]
}
}

William, to answer your question, I think yes, I did want i to be the index for the forvalues loop. Again, still a little clunky from my illness, but this code produced the result I was looking for. Thanks again for your help.