On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 11:12 AM, Ista Zahn <istazahn@gmail.com> wrote:

On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 9:23 AM, Paul <paulburk314@gmail.com> wrote:
> I write do-files for Stata code in emacs using ESS, which marks up my
> code and sends it to a comint-mode buffer for evaluation. I'd like to
> include some source code in an org file, as in the below examle:
>
> #+begin_src -n
> foreach var of varlist _all{
> rename `var' new_`var'
> }
> #+end_src
>
> I have a couple of questions:
> How can I use ess fontification in this snippet

#+begin_src stata

foreach var of varlist _all{
rename `var' new_`var'
}
#+end_src

works for me.

and in the file to
> which I export?

I think this depends on your export target. It should "just work" for
html, but pdf will be more work.

The manual says I "need to specify the name of the
> major mode," however including "#+begin_src ess -n" results in the
> following error "org-edit-src-code: No such language mode: nil-mode."
> I've tried using ess-mode, and anything else I can think of, to no
> avail. What should I include?

I think "#+begin_src stata" is correct.

>
> Also, assuming I'm able to get the fontification to work, is there a
> way to customize it for exporting?
>
> Finally, org-babel looks tremendously useful. Is there a way to
> harness it's capabilities for an unsupported language like Stata's?

C-c ' will open a temporary buffer in ess mode so you can edit and run
the code using ess, and tangling will work as expected. The only thing
you need babel support for is actually running the code in org-mode
and inserting the results block.

I've made weak attempts to add stata support to babel, but my
elisp-foo is not strong enough.

>
> Thanks to everyone who read this through, and in particular to anyone
> who can help!
> Paul
>