st: options in .ado files

["NEYMOTIN, FLORENCE" <neymotin@calmail.berkeley.edu>]

Hi, I have the user entering a string of numbers as an OPTION in a .ado file, but for some reason, 
the code I wrote for when the user does NOT enter the string is not working.  In this case, I have 
:

syntax varlist, [t(numlist)]

and then...

if "`t'"== ""  {
scalar t=1000
}
else {
...
}

for some reason, it doesn't like the way that I defined the if statement.
any suggestions would be appreciated.
thanks,
Florence

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