erase all files that match

[paulvonhippel]

Is there any way to erase, from Stata, all files that match some stem? I tried this:

erase "Results\Table*.xls"

and it didn't generate an error, but it didn't erase the files either. There's no mention of a wildcard character, such as *, in help erase.

[paulvonhippel]

Why would I want to do this? Well, Table 1, Table 2, etc are files containing output accumulated incrementally the last time I ran my do-file. I'd like to delete them at the start of my do-file so that I can create new output, starting with a clean slate.

[Clyde Schechter]

-erase- only takes a single filename argument. You can instead collect the filenames in a local macro and the loop over that:

local table_files: dir "Results" files "Table*.xls"

foreach t of local table_files {
    erase `t'
}

Notes:

1. If some of the filenames contain embedded blanks, you will need to wrap `t' inside quotes.
2. If you are on a Mac, filenames are case sensitive, so make sure the names of the files have the capitalization you showed. (In Windows, filenames are not case sensitive, so no issue.)

[daniel klein]

You could always call the OS via shell. On Windows:

! erase "Results\Table*.xls"

should do it.

You could also use extended macro functions and loop over files. Not tested:

cd Results

local files : dir "." files "Table*.xls"

foreach f of local files {
    erase "`f'"
}

Be careful with either approach as files are typically removed from disk, permanently; no recycle bin, no recovery.