Calling Python from Stata

Question

This is probably very easy, but after looking through documentation and possible examples online for the past several hours I cannot figure it out.

I have a large dataset (a spreadsheet) that gets heavily cleaned by a DO file. In the DO file I then want to save certain variables of the cleaned data as a temp .csv run some Python scripts, that produce a new CSV and then append that output to my cleaned data.

If that was unclear here is an example.

After cleaning my data set (XYZ) goes from variables A to Z with 100 observations. I want to take variables A and D through F and save it as test.csv. I then want to run a python script that takes this data and creates new variables AA to GG. I want to then take that information and append it to the XYZ dataset (making the dataset now go from A to GG with 100 observations) and then be able to run a second part of my DO file for analysis.

I have been doing this manually and it is fine but the file is going to start changing quickly and it would save me a lot of time.

Answer 1

Would this work (assuming you can get to python

tempfile myfiletemp
save `myfiletemp'
outsheet myfile1.csv
shell python.exe myscript.py
insheet myfile2.csv, clear
append using `myfiletemp'

Answer 2

Type "help shell" in Stata. What you want to do is shell out from Stata, call Python, and then have Stata resume whatever you want it to do after the Python script has completed.