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help for dologx                                                  (Roger Newson)
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Multiple versions of dolog for executing certification scripts

        dolog6 filename [ arguments ]

        dolog7 filename [ arguments ]

        dolog8 filename [ arguments ]

        dolog9 filename [ arguments ]

        dolog10 filename [ arguments ]


Description

The programs dologx are versions of the program dolog, each of which attempts
to execute a do-file under the appropriate Stata version x.  dolog is
downloadable from SSC.  Like do, it causes Stata to execute the commands stored
in a file filename.do, echos the commands as it executes them, and creates a
text log file filename.log.  The program dologx executes the do-file in Stata
version x, unless the user includes a version statement in the do-file.
Usually, a do-file should always contain a version statement at or near the
top, and then it will be executed by dolog (or dologx or do or run) in the
version of Stata in which it was written. However, some do-files, such as
certification scripts, should not contain a version statement, because it is
important to prove that they execute correctly under multiple versions of Stata
(Gould, 2001).


Remarks

The dologx package is distributed separately from the dolog package.  This is
because the dologx package is intended for use by advanced programmers (eg
programmers who write certification scripts), and such advanced programmers
will often have access to two versions of Stata at the same time while in
transition from one version to another, and will therefore probably want to
update their versions of dologx immediately when they start to have access to
the new version of Stata, and to update their versions of dolog later, when the
transition is complete. Note that, if the user includes a version command at
the top of a do-file, then it does not matter whether the user uses dolog or
dologx, because Stata will then execute the do-file in the version of Stata
indicated at the top of the do-file, as long as that version, and the version
of dolog or dologx, are no higher than the version of the Stata executable
being used.


Examples

The following examples execute a certification script parmest.do in Stata 7 and
Stata 8, respectively, each time creating a text log file parmest.log. This is
done to prove that the examples in parmest.do work under both Stata versions.

        . dolog7 parmest

        . dolog8 parmest


Author

Roger Newson, Imperial College London, UK.  Email: r.newson@imperial.ac.uk


References

Gould, W.  2001.  Statistical software certification.  The Stata Journal 1:
29-50.


Also see

 Manual:  [R] do, [R] log
On-line:  help for do, run, doedit, log, version, cscript
          help for dolog if installed