Note: This FAQ is primarily intended for users of versions of Stata before
Stata 8. All users of Stata 8 will find that the findit and ssc commands are
fully integrated in their software and fully documented through both online
help and the Base Reference Manual [R].
Stata 7: I see references to the findit and ssc commands on Statalist, but
my Stata does not recognize these commands. What should I do?
| Title |
|
Stata 7: The findit and ssc commands |
| Author |
Nicholas J. Cox, Durham University, UK |
| Date |
December 2001; minor revisions August 2005 |
findit
findit is Stata’s most thorough, most complete command. It runs both
search and
net search in
searching for Stata programs or documentation accessible through the
Internet, whether the programs or documentation were officially issued by
StataCorp or written by users; see help
findit.
findit was added to Stata on 17 July 2001; that is, after the initial
release of Stata 7, and it is not documented in the Stata 7 manuals.
If you are using Stata 7, you must update your Stata to be able to use
findit; see help
update.
If you are using Stata 6, findit is of no use to you, as it requires
Stata 7. The nearest equivalent is to issue the search and
webseek commands in searching for official and user-written material.
webseek was added to Stata 6 on 28 January 2000; that is, after the
initial release of Stata 6, and it is not documented in the Stata 6 manuals.
You must have updated your Stata on or after 28 January 2000 to be able to
use webseek; see help
update.
If you are using Stata 4 or 5, then know that the search command was
called lookup in these versions. There was no equivalent of
webseek or net search in any Stata before version 6. Given
that you can evidently read this with a browser, you should also be able to
use that browser to find Stata material on the Internet. You should find it
useful to look at
stata.com/links/resources-for-adding-features. However, the majority of
material you will find requires a version of Stata much later than Stata 4
or Stata 5 and will not work with your Stata.
ssc
The ssc command is for interacting with the SSC (Statistical Software
Components) archive, which includes a large amount of user-written Stata
programs and other Stata material; see help
ssc. ssc
was added to Stata on 14 November 2001; that is, after the initial release
of Stata 7, and it is not documented in the Stata 7 manuals.
If you are using Stata 7, you must update your Stata to be able to use
ssc; see help
update.
If you are using Stata 6, ssc is no use to you, as it requires Stata
7. The nearest equivalent is to use the archutil package written by
Nicholas J. Cox and Christopher F. Baum, on which ssc is based.
Provided you have updated your Stata to be able to use webseek,
as described above, webseek archutil will point you to sources of
this package.
If you are using Stata 4 or 5, no equivalent of this command is available to
you in Stata. Given that you can evidently read this with a browser, you
should also be able to use that browser to search SSC; see
http://ideas.repec.org/s/boc/bocode.html. However, the majority of
material you will find requires a version of Stata much later than Stata 4
or Stata 5 and will not work with your Stata.
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