Progamming in Stata - capture_retry (cap2)

* Basic Progamming in Stata - capture_retry (cap2)

* Sometimes when saving files especially if it is a replace command saving over repeatedly Stata can get caught up trying to save a file it just reserved write access to previously.

* One way to handle this problem would be to tell Stata to wait before saving multiple times.

* This can be done with the sleep command

* For instance

sleep 1000

* Will tell Stata to wait 1 second before going on.

* However, this has its own obvious cost in time.

* An alternative would be the following command which tells Stata to retry the command up to `attempts', pausing for 1/100 of a second between attempts.

** Write a small program to be used to retry code.
cap program drop cap2
program define cap2

  * This tells stata to run whatever code is input into the cap2 command.
  * `0' is the entire contents of the input after the command's call.
  cap `0'

  * This is a parameter that tells stata how many times to make the attempt
  local attempts=50

  * The _rc is a local that capture creates that gives an error != 0 if there are any problems with the capture command and == 0 if the command was executed successfully.
  while _rc != 0 & 0`i'<`attempts'-1 {
    local i=0`i' + 1
* Keep track of how many times the command was attempted
    cap `0'
* Attempt the command again
    sleep 10
* Pause for 1/100 of a second between each attempt
  }
  * If the count equals the number of `attempts' then the command has failed and the following code displays and error.
  if 0`i'==`attempts' {
    di _c as error "Command failed after `attempts' attempts : "
    di as input "`0'"
}
end
* End the cap2 program definition

cap2

cap2 adsfadsf

* Note that capture inherently suppresses the output unless noisily is input so
cap2 di "Hello World"

* Shows nothing while:
cap2 noi di "Hello World"

* Gives us the ideal output.