Here's my story, which just expands one step on what you know:
With the -display- there are just two levels we need to think about:
1. Stata interprets what we type. Among other things, global
macros are substituted by their contents.
2. The -display- code tries to do what it's told.
With
display "price in $US"
Stata's inclination is to treat $US as a global macro,
which usually doesn't exist, so it's substituted by
a blank string. That we can fight in the two ways
you mention, and both work.
With the -scatter- you are seeing the consequences
of using an ado file which calls other ados. It's
a Stata principle that behaviour should be the
same whether something is done by part of
the executable or an ado or a do file, but that's
not always possible, given other firm rules.
With -scatter-
scatter price weight, ytitle("price in \$US")
there are more than two levels we need to think about:
1. Stata interprets what we type. "\$" gets
mapped to "$". So far, so good.
2. The -scatter- code tries to do what it's told.
3. But -scatter- is an .ado and code inside
that, in this case, there is a call
graph twoway scatter price weight, ytitle("price in $US")
which will fail to do what you for the same reason
as before. So, in order to get past the guard dogs,
Agent Ryan, you need a sausage for every dog. Whether there
is a clever way of nesting \$ I don't know, but I
doubt it, and in any case that would be an impractical
strategy, as you would have to know _exactly_ how many sausages
were needed, or more prosaically how many times your code would
get interpreted: with the new graphics' deeply nested
structure, not just of ados but also of class-based
stuff, goodness knows what the answer is.
Incidentally, this didn't happen with the old graphics
as what you typed would get interpreted precisely once.
Nick
[email protected]
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected]
> [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of Philip Ryan
> Sent: 21 May 2004 07:37
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: st: treatment of "$" in graphics text
>
>
> Page 207 of the Users Guide [U21.3.9] instructs us on how to
> deal with the
> "$" character if we wish to display a dollar sign and _not_
> consider it the
> marker for global macro expansion. We can either use the "\"
> character or
> some smcl code: {c S|} immediately prior to the "$". These
> devices work
> for -display-. But only the second, the smcl code, appears
> to work in text
> placed on a graphic, eg using -title()- -ytitle()- -label()- etc.
>
> I can't find a reference to this behaviour in the graphics
> manual (or any
> discussion in the archives). Is there a reason for this
> inconsistency/feature?
>
> Try:
>
> ====================
> display "price in $US"
> display "price in \$US"
> display "price in {c S|}US"
> sysuse auto
> scatter price weight, ytitle("price in $US")
> more
> scatter price weight, ytitle("price in \$US")
> more
> scatter price weight, ytitle("price in {c S|}US")
> ====================
>
> (using Stata Windows 18-May-2004 and latest ados)
>
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