statacons: An SCons-based build tool for Stata
Raymond P. Guiteras, Ahnjeong Kim, Brian Quistorff and Clayson Shumway
CEnREP Working Paper 22-001, May 2022, https://go.ncsu.edu/cenrep-wp-22-001. Accepted at The Stata Journal. PDF
Abstract: This paper presents statacons, an SCons-based build tool for Stata. Because of the integration of Stata and Python in recent versions of Stata, we are able to adapt SCons for Stata workflows without the use of an external shell or extensive configuration. We discuss the usefulness of build tools generally, provide examples of the use of statacons in Stata workflows, present key elements of the syntax of statacons, and discuss extensions, alternatives, and limitations. Appendices provide installation instructions and recommendations for collaborative workflows.
Preferred citation: Guiteras, Raymond, Ahnjeong Kim, Brian Quistorff and Clayson Shumway, "statacons: An SCons-based build tool for Stata," CEnREP Working Paper 22-001, May 2022, https://go.ncsu.edu/cenrep-wp-22-001. Accepted at The Stata Journal.
Resources
The Project Web Page at https://bquistorff.github.io/statacons/index.html hosts or links to all statacons resources, including:
The paper: Guiteras, Raymond, Ahnjeong Kim, Brian Quistorff and Clayson Shumway, "statacons: An SCons-based build tool for Stata," CEnREP Working Paper 22-001, May 2022, https://go.ncsu.edu/cenrep-wp-22-001. Revised and resumbitted to The Stata Journal. PDF
The Installation Guide: https://bquistorff.github.io/statacons/installation.html.
A web tutorial based on Software Carpentry's make lesson: https://bquistorff.github.io/statacons/swc.html
The project Wiki Page with additional advanced features (user contributions welcome): https://github.com/bquistorff/statacons/wiki
Documentation for statacons, stataconsign, and pystatacons
The MetaArXiV site hosting drafts of the paper: https://osf.io/preprints/metaarxiv/qesx6/.
The OSF site archiving all versions of the software and replication code and data: https://osf.io/gbh4m/
Installation
See the Installation Guide: https://bquistorff.github.io/statacons/installation.html.