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Re: st: Error message when trying to save a file named "aux"


From   [email protected] (Alan Riley)
To   [email protected]
Subject   Re: st: Error message when trying to save a file named "aux"
Date   Fri, 15 Jul 2005 13:20:39 -0500

Jean Salvati ([email protected]) discovered that a file named 'aux'
cannot be created:
> ...
> Is "aux" a reserved name? Or is this a known bug? I searched the FAQ but
> didn't find any information about that.

This is due to old DOS device names which are still reserved by
Microsoft even in modern versions of Windows.  Every time a
file is used by a Stata command, Stata could compare the filename
against the list of reserved names, but this could slow down
do-files and ado-files if this comparison were done on every
-save-, -use-, -insheet-, -graph save-, etc. command.  This is
the first time of which I am aware that a user has encountered
one of these names in the long history of Stata for Windows.

The full list of reserved names can be found here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/fileio/fs/naming_a_file.asp
<http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/fileio/fs/naming_a_file.asp>

The relevant section reads

   "Do not use the following reserved device names for the name of a
    file: CON, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, COM5, COM6, COM7,
    COM8, COM9, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, LPT4, LPT5, LPT6, LPT7, LPT8, and
    LPT9. Also avoid these names followed by an extension, for example,
    NUL.tx7."

We will create a FAQ for www.stata.com which details this.


--Alan
([email protected])
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