Re: st: describe using (problem with abbrev )

[daniel klein <klein.daniel.81@gmail.com>]

Alan,

this behavior is documented in -help describe-.

"The varlist in the describe using syntax differs from standard Stata
varlists in two ways. First, you cannot abbreviate variable names;
that is, you have to type displacement rather than displ. However, you
can use the wildcard character (~) to indicate abbreviations, for
example, displ~. Second, you may not refer to a range of variables;
specifying age-income is considered an error."

Here is a sketch how you could allow the dash character

*! version 1.0.0 03dec2013 Daniel Klein

pr descdash
 vers 11.2

 syntax anything using [, * ]

 m : st_local("uservars", stritrim(st_local("anything")))
 loc uservars : subinstr loc uservars "- " "-" ,all
 loc uservars : subinstr loc uservars " -" "-" ,all

 qui d `using' ,varl
 loc allvars `r(varlist)'

 token `uservars'
 forv j = 1/`: word count `uservars'' {
  loc var : subinstr loc `j' "-" " " ,c(loc dsh)
  if (`dsh') {
   loc f : list posof "`: word 1 of `var''" in allvars
   loc t : list posof "`: word 2 of `var''" in allvars
   if (`t' < `f') {
    di as err "variables out of order"
    e 111
   }
   m : st_local("var", ///
   invtokens(tokens(st_local("allvars"))[(`f'..`t')]))
  }
  loc varlist `varlist' `var'
 }

 d `varlist' `using' ,`options'
end
e

descdash y1-y2 using ajit_112213

Best
Daniel

-- 
Hi _ In Stata 13 (and also in Stata 12), it appears that the
abbreviation with a dash "-" does not work with -describe using
*
*   For searches and help try:
*   http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
*   http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/resources/statalist-faq/
*   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/