Nick Winter wrote
> As others have noted:
>
> --command names under four characters are discouraged
>
> --command names that are English/American words are discouraged
>
> --the -cmdname- command exists to register (ie, lay claim to) commands
> that meet those rules and are not previously registered
>
> -- -cmdname- is little-used
Until now, I had no idea -cmdname- existed despite having contributed a
number of files to SSC. Ignorance is no excuse, however, the lack of uptake
w.r.t -cmdname- is not surprising given how little publicity it got
recently: a search of all 35,000 messages on the Statalist archive doesn't
turn up any references to -cmdname-. The fact that -findit cmdname- points
to an insert in STB-51 is moot since you have to know the command exists
before even thinking of running the search.
and also wrote
> My program 'c' has existed on my personal system for a while as 'c',
> which caused me no problems, since I do not have Ulrich Kohler's
> calculator program of the same name. When I decided to post it
> publicly, via SSC, I decided to keep the name, since the
> whole point of
> the program is to save keystrokes when changing directories, I didn't
> want to name it something longer.
The 5-character rule for names is _the_ one rule I have found most irksome
for the very reason Nick mentioned. As a work-around (which also solves the
'Dictionary word' rule), I set up an additional folder named C:\ado\abbrev\
on my adopath. This new folder takes precedence over all other system
directories. In it, I store scores of mini ado files whose names are
abbreviations I want to allow for commands. These commands may either be my
own, official Stata, or other user-written ones.
For e.g., I originally wanted to name my Vector Error Correction Models
routine ecm.ado. Rules being rules, I decided to call it vececm.ado which
is also consistent with Kit Baum's -vecar- package (for vector
autoregressions). But to allow -ecm- as an abbreviation for vececm.ado, I
simply added ecm.ado below
-----------ecm.ado----------
program define ecm
vececm `0'
end
----------------------------
to my c:\ado\abbrev directory. That way, I may refer to vececm.ado by
simply typing -ecm ...- and distribute the program on SSC as vececm.ado
which is consistent with the conventions. Please note that I have
absolutely no desire of convincing _anyone_ to subscribe to this approach.
I just wanted to present a simple work around which some may find useful and
can even be extended to abbreviate other commands.
Patrick Joly
[email protected]
[email protected]
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