Hey folks,

im pretty new to stata and trying to merge different variables into 1 variable for ~20 datafiles with a loop.
I have different Housholds in the datasets which are identified with the variable names q1a, q1b, q1c, paid and hhid. This variables shall be merged into the single variable HH_ID across the 20datasets in my file. In order to do so I tried different commands:

Try1:
local files : dir"C:\Users\User\Desktop\Master\Thesis\Data\Data Cleaning\Required Data Files" files "*.dta*"

foreach file in `files' {
generate HHID = string(q1a) + string(q1b) + string(q1c) + string(paid) + string(hhid)
save `files', replace
}

Stata: unexpected end of file

Try2:
local myfilelist : dir"C:\Users\User\Desktop\Master\Thesis\Data\Data Cleaning\Required Data Files" files "*.dta*"
dir `myfilelist'
foreach datafile of local myfilelist {
generate HH_ID = string(q1a) + string(q1b) + string(q1c) + string(paid) + string(hhid)
save "*.dta*", replace
}

Stata: unexpected end of file

Using only the command " generate HH_ID = string(q1a) + string(q1b) + string(q1c) + string(paid) + string(hhid)" it is possible to merge and create the new variable, so this one works, however the loop does not.

Can someone give me advice how to alter this command to run that loop?

Thank you in advance!