Introduction to Stata 8 - (GRIPS

3. Suggested mode of operation
The recommendations in this section only partly follow what is recommended in the [GSW]
manual; I try to explain why, when my recommendations differ.
3.1. Issuing commands
The command line window
In the Command line window you may enter commands, one at a time, and execute them.
This works well in simple tasks, but for complex tasks it is a lot safer and more efficient to
write the commands in a do-file before execution.
The dialogs (menu system) [GSW] 2
The menu system enables you to generate quite complex commands without looking them up
in the manuals. You may need to do some editing if you are not quite satisfied with the result.
For graphs and many analyses the menus are a blessing. But for documentation commands
(section 9) and calculation commands (section 10) it is a lot easier to write the commands
directly in the command window or in a do-file than to generate them by the menus.
Do-files [U] 19
See examples of do-files in section 16. A do-file is a series of commands to be executed in
sequence. For any major tasks this is preferable to entering single commands because:
• You make sure that the commands are executed in the sequence intended.
• If you discover an error you can easily correct it and re-run the do-file.
• The do-file serves as documentation of what you did.
Use the do-file editor or any text editor like NoteTab (see appendix 3) to enter the commands.
I prefer NoteTab to the do-file editor, because I have direct access to several do-files and the
output in one place, although I cannot execute commands directly from NoteTab.
You may, after having issued a number of more or less successful commands, click the upper
left Review window button to save the contents of the Review window as a do-file. The
command log file (cmdlog.txt) may be used for the same purpose.
The do command
Find and execute a do-file by clicking: File ► Do...
or by entering path and filename in the command window:
do c:\dokumenter\proj1\alpha.do
You may also from the do-file editor execute the entire or a highlighted part of the current file
by clicking the do-button (number two from the right). The disadvantage of this method is
that the name of your do-file is not reflected in the output. I recommend issuing a do
command with full path and name of the do-file, for reasons of documentation.
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