Re: st: (Il)Legal variable/macro names?

[n j cox <n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk>]

This is mostly for StataCorp, but I'll comment.

I think Mark has been bitten by a bug; the question
is where is the bug.

1. Is it that -tempvar- allows a name that is really
illegal?

2. Is it whatever caused the statement that failed
to recognise a legal macro name? (Apparently,
a parser limitation.)

StataCorp will decide which it is. A wild guess is
that it will be much easier to fix -tempvar- and
-tempname- to disallow names like Mark's than
to ensure that names like his work everywhere
they might be used -- on all versions of Stata
on all platforms in all circumstances.

Either way, there is now a small mystery on
exactly what characters are really allowed within names.

I make a distinction:

1. As a Stata user, I want StataCorp to do the maximum
possible to let me use whatever characters I need for _labelling 
output_. Typically, I try hard to use correct spelling, including
accents, wherever appropriate in variable labels, value labels
and graph annotation (not to mention the old question of mathematical 
symbols and Greek characters). I trust that is not controversial or
disagreeable. I am much less fussed about characters in (permanent)
variable names. That may well, naturally, be much more
important to people using languages more accented than English.

2. As a Stata programmer, I am happy to accept a very limited
character set A-Z a-z 0-9 _ for macro names. It would be
interesting to hear arguments to the opposite effect in
addition to Mark's want.

Nick
n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk

Schaffer, Mark E

I've just been bitten by an odd inconsistency between what constitutes a 
legal name for a variable and a legal name for a macro.  8-bit ascii 
characters are apparently legal in variable names, but when used in a 
macro name, no macro is created.

Here's an example using the auto dataset.  The first part shows that the 
variable name u� is legal.  The second part shows that when I try to use 
-tempvar- to create a macro called "u�", nothing is created - when Stata 
gets to the next line, macro substitution means `u�' becomes ... nothing.

. do "C:\DOCUME~1\MARKSC~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\STD0l000000.tmp"

. sysuse auto, clear
(1978 Automobile Data)

.
. capture program drop legalnames

. program define legalnames
  1. gen u� = mpg
  2. sum u�
  3. tempvar u�
  4. gen `u�' = mpg
  5. sum `u�'
  6. end

.
. set trace on

. legalnames
  ----------------------------------------------- begin legalnames ---
  - gen u� = mpg
  - sum u�

    Variable |       Obs        Mean    Std. Dev.       Min        Max
-------------+--------------------------------------------------------
          u� |        74     21.2973    5.785503         12         41
  - tempvar u�
  - gen `u�' = mpg
  = gen  = mpg
too few variables specified
  ------------------------------------------------- end legalnames ---
r(102);

end of do-file
r(102);


I can't find anything about this in the manuals, but the behavior of 
-tempvar- does look bug-like - if an illegal macro name is used, 
shouldn't -tempvar- complain?

In programs I sometimes generate macro names based on variable names, so 
if the naming rules are actually different for variable names and macro 
names, this is not a good strategy.

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