01-the-basics-of-stata.qmd

# The Basics of Stata

## The Stata Environment

[![](./images/stata_main_screen.png)](./images/stata_main_screen.png)

When a user first opens Stata, there are five panes that will appear in the main
window:

- The Results Pane
    - All commands which are run are echoed out here, as well as any output they
      produce. Not all commands produce output though most do (e.g. obtaining
      summaries of the data or running a statistical procedure). Items that
      appear in the results pane in <span style="color:blue">blue</span> are
      clickable.
- The Command Pane
    - This pane is where users can interactively type Stata commands and submit
      them to Stata for processing. Everything that one can do in Stata is based
      on a set of Stata commands. Stata commands are case sensitive. All Stata
      commands and options are in lower case. When variables are used in any
      command, the variable names are also case sensitive.
- The Variables Pane
    - This pane displays all of the variables in the data set that is currently
      open in Stata, and users can click on variable names in this pane to carry
      the variables over into Stata commands in the Command pane. Note that
      Stata allows only [one data-set](01-the-basics-of-stata.qmd#one-data) to
      be open in a session.
- The History Pane
    - Stata will keep a running record of all Stata commands that have been
      submitted in the current session in this pane. Users can simply click on
      previous commands in this pane to recall them in the Command pane.
- The Properties Pane
    - This pane allows variable properties and data-set properties to be
      managed. [Variable names](03-data-management.qmd#renaming-variables),
      [labels](03-data-management.qmd#labeling-variables), [value
      labels](03-data-management.qmd#labeling-values), [display
      formats](03-data-management.qmd#describing-the-data), and [storage
      types](03-data-management.qmd#describing-the-data) can be viewed and
      modified here.

Each of these five panes will be nested within the main Stata session, which
contains menus and tool bars. There are additional windows that users can access
from the Window menu, which include the Graph window (which will open when
graphs have been created), the Viewer window (which is primarily used for
[help](01-the-basics-of-stata.qmd#stata-help) features and Stata news), the
Data Editor window (for use when [viewing data
sets](02-working-with-data-sets.qmd#editing-data-manually)), and the Do-file
Editor window (for use when writing [.do
files](01-the-basics-of-stata.qmd#do-files)).

In the lower left-hand corner of the main Stata window (below the panes), there
will be a directory displayed. This is known as the [working
directory](01-the-basics-of-stata.qmd#working-directory), and is where Stata
will look to find data files and other associated Stata files unless the user
specifies another directory. We will cover examples of changing the working
directory.

### Alternate Layout

[![](./images/stata_main_screen_alt.png)](./images/stata_main_screen_alt.png)

An alternate layout (found in View -> Layout) places the History and Variables
pane in tabs on the right hand side instead.

(Note that this screenshot is taken on a Mac, as opposed to the original
screenshot on Windows, just for comparison.)

## One Data {#one-data}

One functionality where Stata differs than most other statistical or data
analysis software is that Stata can only work with a single data set at a time.

Any command you run knows to operate on the data set you have open. For example,
there is a command [`summarize`](03-data-management.qmd#summarizing-the-data)
which provides summary information about variables. The command is simply
`summarize`, there is no need to direct it towards a specific data set.

If you have multiple data sets you need to work with, you can either

1. Switch between the two data sets as needed. This can be burdensome, though
   tools such as
   [`preserve`](02-working-with-data-sets.qmd#temporarily-preserving-and-restoring-data)
   or [`frames`](02-working-with-data-sets.qmd#frames) help greatly.

2. Merge the data sets, the better option. We'll discuss
   [merging](04-data-manipulation.qmd#merging-files) towards the end of the
   course.

## Give Stata a command

Let's try running a Stata command. In the command pane, type (or copy and paste)
the following:

```stata
version
```

The following should appear in the Results pane:

```stata
. version
version 18.5

```

The first line proceeded by the `.` indicates the command that was written,
`version`, and the rest is the output. Here, I am running Stata version 18.5
(your version may vary).

In this document, if you see a single command without a period, it indicates
something that was not run - either it's not designed to be run (it's fake code
designed to illustrate a point), or more likely, the output is not interesting
or unnecessary. If you instead see a Results output where the first line is the
command prefaced by the `.`, that was run in Stata and only the Results are
included since they include the command. The command can still be run, *but
should be run without the `.`*^[Stata can handle commands that are prefaced by
`.` (with a space between the period and comand) so you can copy/paste the `.
version` and run it as is. However, don't get used to that habit! The correct
command is just `version`.].

### Saving Results

Any output that appears in the Results pane (including the echoed commands and
any errors) can be copied and pasted into another location, such as Word. In
addition, if you highlight text and right-click, you also have the options:

- "Copy table": Useful for exporting to Excel. This can be tempermental; if the
  selected table is less "regular", this may not produce the best results. It is
  most useful for text which comes naturally as a table rather than results
  which are forced into a table for display purposes.
- "Copy table as HTML": You can paste this into a plaintext editor (Notepad.exe
  or TextEdit, *not* Word) and save it as a *.qmd to produce a webpage. If you
  paste this into Excel you get a slightly different table than the layout for
  "Copy table" which may be more useful.
- "Copy as picture": Does exactly what it says - equivalent to taking a
  screenshot. Very handy!

There are a few commands that can be useful for saving results which we will not
cover in this workshop, if you are interested, you can look into [the
help](01-the-basics-of-stata.qmd#stata-help) for them.

- `log`: Saves a file consisting of everything printed to the Results pane.
- `putexcel`: Adds to a spreadsheet specific strings or output.
- `dtable`: A very complex command that can create complete tables. Take a look
  at [this blog
  post](https://blog.stata.com/2023/06/26/creating-tables-of-descriptive-statistics-in-stata-18-the-new-dtable-command/)
  on the Stata blog for more ideas of how it can be used.
- `outreg2`: A
  [user-written](01-the-basics-of-stata.qmd#installing-user-written-commands)
  command to output the results of a model (e.g. regression) in a clean format.

### Dynamic Tags

Dynamic tags and the `dyndoc` and `dyntext` commands which allows you to weave
together narrative text and Stata code to produce a high-quality output (html,
word or pdf). This document is written ([in
part](index.qmd#creation-of-this-document)) in Dynamic Tags. It is extremely
powerful but is well outside the mandate of this class. If you are interested in
this functionality, I'd be happy to help. [This Stata
manual](https://www.stata.com/manuals/rptdynamicdocumentsintro.pdf) is a good
introduction.

## Updating

If you have administrative access on your computer (e.g. if it is your personal
machine, or your IT department has given you the ability), you can update Stata
freely. Major point upgrades such as 18.0 require purchase and re-installation,
but minor upgrades (such as the 16.1 and 16.2 updates) as well as minor internal
updates are usually free.

To check for updates, you can run

```stata
update query
```

If any updates are available (regardless of whether you ran a query first), you
can obtain all updates with

```stata
update all
```

If you do not have administrative access on your computer, you'll need to reach
out to your IT administrators to update.

## Installing user-written commands

In addition to built in commands, Stata supports user-written programs, know as
"ado-files"^[As we'll see in [a bit](01-the-basics-of-stata.qmd#do-files), you
can save Stata commands in a "do-file". While I've never seen an official
definition, I tend to think of "ado" as "automatic do".]. Once installed, these
user-written programs operate identically to any built-in command, with the
caveat that they may not be quite as polished or complete since they're
volunteer written. Documentation is rarely up to [Stata
standards](01-the-basics-of-stata.qmd#stata-help) and often relegates details
to a manuscript.

We won't be covering any ado-files in these notes, but if you wanted to install
a program named `newcommand`:

```stata
ssc install newcommand
```

You can remove a program with

```stata
ssc uninstall newcommand
```

Finally, to see a list of all user-written programs you have installed, used

```stata
ado
```

[Updating Stata](01-the-basics-of-stata.qmd#updating) will not update any
ado-files, instead you can run


```stata
adoupdate
```

to list all available updates and

```stata
adoupdate, update
```

to perform all updates.

## Do-files

We [saw](01-the-basics-of-stata.qmd#give-stata-a-command) that commands can be
typed interactively, one command at a time, and the results immediately
observed. From this, the output can be copied/exported/printed, or the results
can be saved. However, a better paradigm would save all the commands run
separately so that the analysis is
[reproducible](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproducibility#Reproducible_research).

For this purpose, Stata has Do-files (named because they are saved with the .do
extension, such as `analysis.do`) which are scripts containing only commands and
[comments](01-the-basics-of-stata.qmd#comments). We can then run any subset of
the commands (including the entire file), re-running parts or all of the
analysis. Additionally you can easily save and/or share this command, allowing
yourself or a colleague to re-run the analysis.

There are several ways to start a new Do-file.

- File -> New -> Do-file
- Click the "Do-file Editor" button in the main window
- You can enter the command:

```stata
doedit
```

- If you select some commands in the History pane, you can right click and
  choose "Send select to Do-file Editor".

For the last option there, note that performing that twice will create two
separate Do-files instead of appending the commands. Instead, you can copy and
paste from the History pane to add to an existing Do-file.

Let's manually add some commands to a Do-file to see how to execute the
commands. In a Do-file editor, enter the following

```stata
sysuse auto, clear
summarize price
tabulate foreign
```

Once the lines are in the editor, highlight the commands (you do not need to
highlight the entire line, you merely need to ensure your selection includes
part of every line you want run) and press the "Execute/Do" (on Windows) or "Do"
(on Mac) button. You should see the following appear in your Results pane.

```stata
. sysuse auto, clear
(1978 automobile data)

. summarize price

    Variable |        Obs        Mean    Std. dev.       Min        Max
-------------+---------------------------------------------------------
       price |         74    6165.257    2949.496       3291      15906

. tabulate foreign

 Car origin |      Freq.     Percent        Cum.
------------+-----------------------------------
   Domestic |         52       70.27       70.27
    Foreign |         22       29.73      100.00
------------+-----------------------------------
      Total |         74      100.00

```

We will cover in later sections what each of these commands does
([`sysuse`](02-working-with-data-sets.qmd#built-in-data),
[`summarize`](03-data-management.qmd#summarizing-the-data), and
[`tabulate`](03-data-management.qmd#labeling-values)).

### Comments

Comments are information in a Do-file which Stata will ignore. They can be used
to stop a command from running without deleting it, or more usefully, to add
information about the code which may be useful for others (or yourself in the
future) to understand how some code works or to justify why you made certain
choices. In general, comments can also help readability. There are three
different ways to enter comments (and one additional special way).

First, to comment out an entire line, precede it by `*`:

```stata
. * This is a comment
```

Second, you can add a comment to the end of a line with `//`

```stata
. version // Returns the Stata version number
version 18.5

. // You can also use it to comment out an entire line.
```

There must be a space before the `//` if it comes after a command:

```stata
. version// Returns the Stata version number
invalid syntax
r(198);

```

Thirdly, you can comment out a section by wrapping it in `/\*` and `\*/`

```stata
. /* Here's a several
> line comment.
> It just keeps going. */
. summarize /* comment in the middle of a command! */ price

    Variable |        Obs        Mean    Std. dev.       Min        Max
-------------+---------------------------------------------------------
       price |         74    6165.257    2949.496       3291      15906

```

Note that when a command wraps to more than one line in the Results pane (either
due to a manual line break like this or a command that's too wide for the
Results pane), the prefix changes from `.` to `>` to indicate that its all one
command.

Finally, there's the special comment, `///`. Stata commands must be on a single
line. However, complicated commands may get very long, such that its hard to
read them on a single line. Using `///` instead of `//` allows wrapping onto the
next line.

```stata
. summarize ///
> price

    Variable |        Obs        Mean    Std. dev.       Min        Max
-------------+---------------------------------------------------------
       price |         74    6165.257    2949.496       3291      15906

```

As with `//`, there needs to be a space before the `///`.

Only the `*` works on interactive commands entered in the Command pane. All four
versions work in Do-files.

### Version control

When writing a Do-file, you generally are creating it while using a single
version of Stata. If a new version of Stata were released, its possible that
your code may operate differently with the new version. If you add

```stata
version 14.2
```

to the beginning of your Do-file, Stata will execute the commands as if it were
still running version 14.2, even if you've updated to Stata 18. This works all
the way back to Stata 2. (Obviously, this will not work if you try to run as
Stata 18 when you only have Stata 14 installed.)

Note that this `version` is the same command as the `version` we've been
discussing [before](01-the-basics-of-stata.qmd#give-stata-a-command). It
operates in this special fashion only when included at the top of a Do-file.

Best practices is to always include a `version ##.#` line at the top of each
Do-file, but if its code that will continue to see use, you should test it with
the newer releases and update the code as necessary!

## Exercise 0

Get familiar with the Stata interface. If you've been following along, you may
have already done all these!

1. If you haven't already, open Stata. (You should be able to do this by
   clicking on the "Start" menu in the bottom left of the screen, then typing
   "Stata".)
2. The [use of each pane](01-the-basics-of-stata.qmd#the-stata-environment)
   will become much clearer when we start opening data in the [next
   section](02-working-with-data-sets.qmd), but take a look at each.
3. Give Stata a command: `query memory`. This lists some settings related to
   memory usage in Stata, for example, `maxvar` is the maximum number of
   variables in a model; `matsize` is the largest number of predictors allowed
   in a model.
4. Open a [Do file](01-the-basics-of-stata.qmd#do-files). Place a [`version`
   command](01-the-basics-of-stata.qmd#version-control) at the top of the file
   corresponding to the version on your computer. Place the `query memory`
   command from the last step in the Do file.
5. Be sure you know how to run these commands from the Do file.
6. [Comment](01-the-basics-of-stata.qmd#comments) out the `query memory`
   command; we won't need it anymore.

## Basic command syntax

Most Stata commands which operate on variables (as opposed to system commands
such as `version`, `update`, `query`, etc.) follow the same general format.
Recognizing this format will make it easier to understand new commands to which
you are introduced.

The basic syntax is

```stata
command <variable(s)>, <options>
```

The command can take on more than one word; e.g. to create a scatter plot, the
command is `graph twoway scatter`.

Depending on the command, the list of variables can contain 0 variables, 1
variable, or many variables separated by spaces. Whether the order of variables
matters depends on the specific command.

Above, in the do-file, we ran three lines of code. The first, `sysuse auto`, is
a system command that we'll discuss later.

The second and third lines, `summarize price mpg` and `tabulate foreign`, follow
the basic syntax - "`summarize`" and "`tabulate`" are the commands.
"`summarize`" is operating on two variables, "price" and "mpg"; the order in
which the variables appear in the command controls the order in which they
appear in the table. "`tabulate`" is operating on a single variable, creating a
one-way table; putting a second variable transforms it into a two-way table.

The options are not required (none of the above commands have options), but if
they are given, they too are separated by spaces. There are some options that
are consistent across a number of commands, and some options are specific to
commands.

## Stata Help

Stata has, hands down, the best built-in help files of any of the "Big 4"
statistical software.^[I consider the "Big 4" as Stata, SAS, SPSS, and R. SPSS
has terrible help; SAS's is good but dense and difficult to navigate if you
don't already know what you're looking for; R's is very hit-or-miss depending on
who wrote it.] Stata's help should be your first stop for any of the following:

- Understanding the syntax of a command
- Exploring the options available for a given command
- Looking at examples of the command in use
- Understanding the theoretical statistics behind the command.

Help can be accessed by calling `help <command>`, such as

```
help summarize
```

Each help page has numerous features, I will merely point out a few here.

1. The "Title" section contains a link (in <span style="color:blue">blue</span>)
   to a PDF which contains the Manual, which has more detail and examples than
   the help file alone.
2. The syntax section shows the basic syntax. Any part written in square
   brackets (`[...]`) are optional.
3. The examples in the help are great but basic; the PDF help (see #1) usually
   has more detailed examples.
4. We will discuss the "Stored results" in the [Programming][programming]
   section.

`help` can also be used to search for the appropriate command. For example, if
you wanted help merging some data together (which we will cover [later][merging
files]), you might try running

```stata
help merging
```

`merging` is not a valid Stata command, so instead Stata performs a search of
the help files. This search is often not great. I would recommend searching
online for the appropriate command to use (just search "Stata" and what you are
trying to do), then using the built-in help for details on using the command.

Finally, `help help` works and brings up some more information on the `help`
command.

### Short commands

You'll frequently see commands with partial underlining; for example `summarize`
has the "su" underlined. Only the underlined part needs to be given for Stata to
understand the command; e.g. the following are all equivalent:

```stata
summarize
summ
su
```

This is often true for options as well; `detail` (to report far more summary
details) has the "d" underlined. So these are equivalent:

```stata
summarize, detail
su, detail
summarize, d
su, d
```

The short commands are very useful for quickly writing commands, but not so
great at reading them. If you came across someone else's Stata Do-file and saw
`su, d`, you might have trouble figuring that out unless you already knew that
short command. Thankfully, the short commands can be used with `help`, so `help
su` will bring up the full `summarize` documentation.

## Working directory

We mentioned [earlier](01-the-basics-of-stata.qmd#the-stata-environment) the
notion of a "working directory", the current one you can see in the bottom left
of the Stata window. You can think of a working directory as an open folder
inside Windows Explorer (or Finder if you're on a Mac). You can easily access
any file within that folder without any additional trouble. You can access files
in other folders (directories), but it requires moving to that folder.

In the same sense, when referring to files, any file in the working directory
can be referred to buy its name. For example, to open a file (we'll go into
detail about doing this [later](02-working-with-data-sets.qmd#opening data))
named "mydata.dta" which is in your current working directory, you need only
enter

```stata
use mydata.dta
```

(Technically you could just run `use mydata` as Stata will search for a file
with the appropriate ".dta" extension automatically.)

If you were in a different working directory, you need to specify the full path
to the file:

```stata
use C:\Documents\Stata\Project\mydata.dta
```

Similarly, when saving files, the working directory is the default choice.

If your file path has *any* spaces, you must wrap it in quotations:

```stata
use "C:\Documents\Stata\My Project\mydata.dta"
```

The working directory can be viewed with the `pwd` command (Print Working
Directory)

```stata
. pwd
C:\Documents
```

You can change the working directory by passing a path to `cd` (Change
Directory):

```stata
cd C:\Documents\Stata\Project
```

Alternatively and perhaps more easily, you can change the working directory by
the menus, choosing "Files -> Change working directory". After selecting the
appropriate directory, the full `cd` command will be printed in the Results, so
you can save it in a Do-file for later use.

### File paths

There are some distinctions between Windows and Mac in regards to file paths,
the most blatant that Windows uses forward slash (`\\`) whereas Mac uses back
slashes (`\/`). You can see full details of this by running `help filename`.