Kit Baum ([email protected]) responded to my post about filename extensions:
> I understand why Stata might use this algorithm, but if I had
> designed it, I would not have done it that way... "looking forward
> for a period" fails miserably on any of my files with names like
> directors.tenure.proxy.sep2005.dta, which are perfectly legal under
> *nix variants. Searching BACKWARD from the end of the filename would
> be a much better way to determine whether there is a file extension.
> (That does not preclude Stata making a mistake with a file
> lacking .dta, but then it is the user's problem, not Stata's).
I misspoke yesterday when I said that Stata searches from the
beginning of the filename. For the purposes of determining
whether a file has an extension, it does not matter whether the
search starts at the beginning of the filename or at the end.
If there is a period anywhere in the filename, Stata will assume
the file has an extension. Thus, if a user types
. use directors.tenure.proxy.sep2005
Stata will assume that the extension is "sep2005" and will not try
to add ".dta".
Alan
([email protected])
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