st: -distplot- of multiple variables with variable used as symbol

[Roger Harbord <Roger.Harbord@bristol.ac.uk>]

I've encountered some strange behaviour in Nick Cox's program -distplot- 
published in STB-51.  It won't let me plot the distribution functions of 
more than one variable AND use another variable to label the points, 
although I can do either alone.

I'll use the automobile data to demonstrate so others can try to replicate 
the problem, although there's little purpose to the commands in this 
context - with my real data I'm comparing two distributions graphically and 
hoped to label the points so I can identify outliers at the same time 
(mainly for presentation purposes):

-------------------------------------------
. use "C:\Program Files\StataSE\auto.dta"
(1978 Automobile Data)

. distplot length, c(J) s([rep78])

. * (worked fine)

. distplot length displacement, c(JJ) s(oo)

. * (also worked fine)

. distplot length displacement, c(JJ) s([rep78]o)
variable rep78 not found
r(111);

. * Just to check I've got the syntax right in the s() option :
. graph length displacement weight, c(JJ) s([rep78]o)

. * (worked fine though a mess of a graph!)

. * describe my setup :

. which distplot
c:\ado\stbplus\d\distplot.ado
*! version 1.5.0 NJC 24 March 1999        [STB-51: gr41]

. about

Stata/SE 7.0 for Windows 98/95/NT
Born 11 June 2002
Copyright (C) 1985-2002

Total physical memory:      261668 KB
Available physical memory:  112792 KB

. update query
(contacting http://www.stata.com)

Stata executable
   folder:               C:\Program Files\StataSE\
   name of file:         wsestata.exe
   currently installed:  11 June 2002
   latest available:     11 Jun 2002

Ado-file updates
   folder:               C:\Program Files\StataSE\ado\updates\
   names of files:       (various)
   currently installed:  08 Nov 2002
   latest available:     08 Nov 2002

Recommendation
   Do nothing; all files up-to-date.
--------------------------------------------------------------

Anyone any idea what's going wrong here?  That error message seems most 
bizarre to me - how can Stata suddenly not be able to find rep78 ??

Thanks,

Roger.
----------------------------------------------------
Roger Harbord     mailto:roger.harbord@bristol.ac.uk
Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol

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