Getting operating system for the if command

[Konrad Zdeb]

Hi,

I would like to identify operating system and use the value for the if command. So my pseudocode would look like that:

if operating_system == "Mac OS X" then
 begin
   use "path to the data file on mac"
   cd "working directory on mac"
 end
else
 begin
   use "path to the data file on windows"
   cd "working directory on windows"
 end 

I keep on using same do files at work (Windows) and at home (Mac) and I have different paths for working directories and data files. I would like to solve it once instead of selecting appropriate files or running separate lines of code here and there. Ideally, I would develop one do file where I would define number of paths as global macros and then used them (like for spmap (ssc) support files, etc.)

[Rich Goldstein]

use "c(os)" which can be found by typing -h creturn- and clicking on "system values"

[ben earnhart]

Also, a lazy/sloppy approach would be simply to put "capture" in front of your use and cd commands. If you're on the wrong OS, it will fail, but fail gracefully and move on to the next; whichever works, will work. Doing it right is nice, but so is keeping it simple.

[Konrad Zdeb]

Also, a lazy/sloppy approach would be simply to put "capture" in front of your use and cd commands. If you're on the wrong OS, it will fail, but fail gracefully and move on to the next; whichever works, will work. Doing it right is nice, but so is keeping it simple.

Thanks, this would be actually quite neat. In effect, I often use the same files stored in my Dropbox folder. Just paths to the Dropbox folder will differ depending on the laptop/OS I'm using at the moment. On the side, using PHP tag in post made me realise that it would nice to have similar syntax highlighting for the chunks with Stata code.

[Sergio Correia]

Thanks, this would be actually quite neat. In effect, I often use the same files stored in my Dropbox folder. Just paths to the Dropbox folder will differ depending on the laptop/OS I'm using at the moment. On the side, using PHP tag in post made me realise that it would nice to have similar syntax highlighting for the chunks with Stata code.

I had the exact problem as you.

In your profile.do , just set a global $DROPBOX = `" ... "' where ... is the dropbox path. Do this for every computer, and use that global whenever you load a dataset (or logfile, dofile, etc)

[Konrad Zdeb]

Sergio,

thanks for your useful suggestion. It suits me perfectly

[Konrad Zdeb]

It also crosses my mind, that it would be need if the one could use some reference for special folders in the path. In effect, I would be happy with: "$user_folder\Dropbox\Analysis on This and That\Stata".

[Sergiy Radyakin]

It also crosses my mind, that it would be need if the one could use some reference for special folders in the path. In effect, I would be happy with: "$user_folder\Dropbox\Analysis on This and That\Stata".

That's called USERPROFILE on Windows systems:

. display `"`:environment USERPROFILE'"'
C:\Users\Mightyuser

Best, Sergiy Radyakin

[Konrad Zdeb]

Shame that it doesn't work on Mac. I would like to return different paths depending on the OS where do file is executed. But suggestion with global macro works for me fine.

[Sergiy Radyakin]

I would be surprised if Mac/Unix didn't have something similar. You should be able to get the user name, which can be used to build the full path using some platform-specific template. We have recently ran a platform survey. There were quite a few users on Macs, perhaps they can help you with platform-specific issues.

PS:Lack of facilities to test do/ado files for cross-platform compatibility is impeding development of more automated tools.

Best, Sergiy Radyakin

[Phil Schumm]

Shame that it doesn't work on Mac.

On OS X/Linux, your Dropbox folder is (by default) located at

~/Dropbox

[Steve Samuels]

Going on from Rich's suggestion:

if c(os)=="MacOSX" {
do something
}