st: Re: statalist-digest V4 #3967

[Christopher Robert <chris_robert@hksphd.harvard.edu>]

Thanks, Nick. Indeed, saving() should be renamed export(), and I will
do so in the next revision (while keeping backward compatibility for
those passing the old saving() option). For anybody wanting to use the
actual graph command's saving() option, it can be passed through
cmogram's graphopts() option.

Jen, I expect that your case will work just fine as soon as you drop
the ", replace". Please report back if that's not the case.

Thanks,

Chris

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2010 12:10:40 +0000
From: Nick Cox <n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk>
Subject: st: RE: Problems opening a Stata produced graphics file with
any other program afterwards [was: Re: statalist-digest V4 #3966]

Christopher Robert [not Roberts] is the author of -cmogram-, although
not named as such in the help file, a rather surprising omission.

What he is explaining here -- and these are my words not his -- is
that the -saving()- option of -cmogram- is a non-standard option which
in fact calls up -graph export-.

I did not realise this when replying earlier. (I did not read the help
for -cmogram-, as I assumed that -saving()- was just a standard
-graph- option.)  The help for -cmogram- does say

"saving(filename) exports the graph to filename and closes the graph
window. This
       option is ideal for automating the output of graphs with .do files."

but it might be easy to miss the crucial word "export".

However, in my view, this option naming is not at all good style. I
can say firmly that this would, for example, not be consciously
allowed if a program like this were submitted to the Stata Journal.

- -saving()- has been the option name for saving a graph file in
Stata's own graph file format since whenever (since at least Stata
2.0, which is the oldest manual on my shelves). To take that name and
give it functionality with different meaning has much potential for
confusion.

Irrespective of whether the implementation of Christopher's -saving()-
option is buggy,
which may well be the case, I'd recommend strongly that it be renamed,
say as -export()-, and that -cmogram- be amended to allow a standard
-saving()- option as well.

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

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