Accessing ado files (icalc) to save to a newer computer

[Owen Gallupe]

Hi,

This is a basic question (for which I apologise), but it's tripping me up. I'm trying to access the "icalc" suite of commands as described in Kaufman (2019). The download website noted in the book (icalcrlk.com) no longer exists so using "net from..." doesn't work. So, I figured I would go back to an old computer and get it from there...this is where my problem arises. Following previous guidance found on Statalist, I type "adopath" into Stata, then try to locate the "Personal" and "Plus" folders listed, but they don't appear to exist on my computer. Clearly, "icalc" is there somewhere since I have used it in the past and can bring up the help file with "help icalc"; I just can't seem to find it.

If anyone could help me on this one, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks!

Owen Gallupe

Kaufman, R. L. (2019). Interaction Effects in Linear and Generalized Linear Models. SAGE Publications Inc. http://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/inte...els/book253602

[Jared Greathouse]

Download the command adoedit from ssc. It'll give you what you want, just be sure to NOT actually edit the file.

[Clyde Schechter]

Try running

which icalc

Stata will respond with the full path to icalc.ado. If icalc was the name of a package but there is no actual icalc command, try to recall the name of an actual command in the package and use -which- with that instead.

Added: Crossed with #2.

[William Lisowski]

The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine allowed me to find a copy of the icalcrlk.com (Robert L Kaufman) website from January 16 2021. The original instructions for installing the ICALC Toolkit can be seen at

https://web.archive.org/web/20201126....com/download/

and it tells us the installation instructions were

net from http://www.icalcrlk.com

and then click on the icalc package.

Well, unfortunately, because these installation files were not linked directly from any page reachable from the home page, they do not appear to have been found and archived by the Wayback Machine. And this is unfortunate because the ICALC toolkit is an entire suite of Stata programs, so you'll likely want a number of ado files, and there may even be programs used only indirectly by the user, so you wouldn't even be aware of thieir names or of the need to have them.

I know you said you don't seem to have PLUS or PERSONAL system directories, but I'm going to attribute that to an oversight because the Stata installation process creates those directories where Stata looks for files that are not part of the basic install. So bear with me and give what follows a try.

Stata keeps track of packages you've downloaded in a file you can look at with the command

view `"`c(sysdir_plus)'stata.trk"'

If you do that and scroll down you'll eventually find the data for the installation you did from icalcrlk.com. I don't have icalc, of course, so what you see will look like the following example that was the result of my installing the numdate package from SSC. The good parts are highlighted in red.

S http://fmwww.bc.edu/repec/bocode/n
N numdate.pkg
D 11 May 2020
U 617
d 'NUMDATE': module to generate date-times or components
d
d  numdate is for generating a new Stata numeric date-time variable
d from one or more existing variables containing date or
d date-time   or time information.      convdate is for
d converting an existing numeric date-time variable,
d generating a new variable of another date-time type.
d extrdate is for generating a variable containing a date or time
d      component from an existing date-time variable.
d
d KW: dates
d KW: times
d KW: generate
d KW: timeseries calendar
d
d Requires: Stata version 12
d
d Distribution-Date: 20170925
d
d Author: Nicholas J. Cox, Durham University
d Support: email N.J.Cox@@durham.ac.uk
d
f n/numdate.ado
f n/numdate.sthlp
f c/convdate.ado
f c/convdate.sthlp
f e/extrdate.ado
f e/extrdate.sthlp
e

The first line has "S" in the first column followed by the URL from which the package was installed; the second line has "N" in the first column followed by the package name, which I expect for you to be "icalc.pkg". The lines with "f" in the first column, in this case, tell us that numdate.ado was installed in the n subdirectory of the PLUS system directory, and so forth.

And we can confirm that is where numdate.ado is found.

. dir "`c(sysdir_plus)'n/numdate.ado"

-rw-r--r--  1 lisowskiw  staff  6518 May 11  2020 /Users/lisowskiw/Library/Application Support/Stata/ado/plus/n/numdate.ado

And that confirms that my PLUS directory is /Users/lisowskiw/Library/Application Support/Stata/ado/plus/.

See if you can use this to find what you need and let us know. It's unfortunate that he maintained his software on his web site, rather than through SSC or some other more permanent web archive. Sage Publications does not appear to house the material themselves.

[Owen Gallupe]

Thanks for your help, everyone! Leaning heavily on your advice, I've got it up and running. And if I can make a plug for icalc, it's really great for probing interaction effects in nonlinear models. I hope the access issues are smoothed out so the user community can benefit from it.

Owen

[William Lisowski]

I do not think the access issues will be smoothed out without further effort. Perhaps you can help.

Robert L. Kafuman of Temple University, the author of Interaction Effects in Linear and Generalized Linear Models: Examples and Applications Using Stata, Sage Press (2018) is now listed as Emeritus Professor on his page at Temple.

https://liberalarts.temple.edu/acade...kaufman-robert

The CV downloaded from that page predates the publication of the book, so there is no later information to be found at Temple. And as noted, he has given up the icalcrlk.com domain at some time after January 2021, so there is no further information to be gained there.

An email address at Temple is given on Professor Kaufman's page at Temple. And Bob Kaufman is a Statalist member, but not active since 2020.

Perhaps if you were to write to Professor Kaufman you will learn more, or he will be encouraged to submit his programs to SSC for hosting there, or work out something with Sage. As it stands, the book he wrote seems to be a problematic value for new purchasers, given its focus on ICALC and the lack of accessibility to the code for new users.

Also, you might consider making a ZIP archive of all the files you needed to copy from your old system to your new one, so that if anyone else raises this problem in the future, you could offer them a copy of the programs.

[Owen Gallupe]

That's a good idea, William. I will reach out. In the meantime, if anyone is interested, I can send them the files.

Owen

[William Lisowski]

For those who find this topic at a later date, Bob Kaufman has made icalc available through SSC, as he has posted just now at

https://www.statalist.org/forums/for...-linear-models

Stata's search command now finds it, and ssc describe icalc summarizes it.