Why does log do not print my commands?

[Cristina Lafuente]

Context: I am working with confidential data, which requires me to log all of my commands and the output in a log file. They will not check my do files, just the logs.

This used to work fine until they upgraded to STATA17. I am not sure why, but the log files do not log my commands anymore. Comments and output yes, commands no.

Why is it happening? Is there a command to fix this?

Sample code below

set more off

foreach year in 1970 1980 1990 {
capture log using "mylog.log", replace name(log_`year')

di "* ---------------------------------------------------------------------------"
di "* Comments "
di "* ---------------------------------------------------------------------------"

use "data`year'.dta", clear

* Renaming variables
rename thisvariable othername

* di "Table One ---------------------------------------"
reg y x [iweight=weight], r 

}

I want it to print everything, but the output from the log file is

* ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Comments
* ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Table One ---------------------------------------
[regression table]

Note how in order for it to print the comments in the log file I have to use the display (di) command. The actual commands, like rename, reg and use, are not recorded.

[Daniel Feenberg]

Stata doesn't -log- commands inside a loop. You and I both wish there were an option to include those commands, especially for debugging. Often I see an error message for a loop with hundreds of lines, and there is no indication of which line the error refers to. You can

set trace on
set tracedepth 1

to get the comands in the loop, but possibly more than is needed or wanted.

Three additional comments: (1) with the -log- command inside the loop, only the output from the last iteration is preserved. I should think you want to move the -log- command out of the loop. (2) The -name- option isn't doing anything here. (3) The -capture- of the -log- command sems like a bad idea. If -log- errors out, then the prior log is preserved, but the program runs to no particular purpose.