StataCodeViewer

Visualize flows of Stata code. This helps to create a visual overview over large Stata projects. This program, written in Python, parses the most frequent input/output commands in Stata code and automatically visualizes the flow of the a project. With this, it is possible to keep track of your own project, detect errors and execution loops as well as explore the code by others (Coauthors ;-)) more easily.

In a nutshell, visualize which .do file:

• Uses which data source

• Creates which files

Global and Local processing is very ad-hoc, this is not a complete parser of Stata code by a long shot. So, this only works if the Stata scripts are kept relatively linear and simple. Especially, data files are processed in loops and with locals are a problem. However, as Stata projects tend to be just like that, it should be fine for many applications.

Installation / Usage

(The package is very much work in process, please let me know of any difficulty)

You'll need Python to run the script.

• Download the repository from GitHub, for example by downloading the ZIP file. Extract it to a location of your choice.
• Install the required libraries (graphviz following https://pypi.org/project/graphviz/)
• Set up a script to analyze your Stata code. Follow the examples in the example/ folder or the example below.

Example

Put this Code to the same folder as the other examples.

import sys
sys.path.append("../")
from StataReader import StataReader

reader = StataReader()

reader.read_folder("stata_example/")

# These files will not be shown in the flowchart.
# Use this for files that are used very often or are irrelevant.
ignore_nodes = ["ignore.do", "ignore.dta"]
for node in ignore_nodes:
    reader.disregard_node(node)

# Create the flowchart
reader.export_graphviz("flowchart.viz")
reader.compile_graphviz("flowchart.viz",
                        "flowchart",
                        render_format='png')

This can be applied to the example Stata code in the repository.

Code of example_data.do

/*
	Create a single file.
*/
sysuse auto, clear
save "example_auto.dta", replace

Code of example_graph.do

/*
	Create some simple output files based on the example data
*/
use "example_auto.dta", clear

// First, a graph
twoway (scatter price mpg)
graph export "scatter.png", replace

// Second, a table
reg price mpg, robust
esttab . using "regression.tex", tex replace

The output then looks as follows: