Re: st: Several ttests

[Philip Ryan <philip.ryan@adelaide.edu.au>]

Stata users must distinguish the common right sided single quote from the 
left sided single quote.  Most programs - especially word processors - 
expect you to use the right sided quote at both the left and right ends of 
an expression, but, as far as local macros are concerned, Stata demands 
explicit left single quote to open, and right single quote to close, an 
expression.  A quick glance around my office shows that on IBM, Microsoft 
and Dell branded keyboards, the left single quote shares the tilde "~" key 
on the upper left of the keyboard, just above the tab key.  But keyboards 
are hardly standard these days (especially on laptops) so you might have to 
hunt around.

May I suggest that, at your earliest possible convenience, you read Chapter 
18 of the User's Guide, wherein all manner of useful goodies are 
explained.  The Chapter is entitled "Programming Stata" but I think anyone 
who wishes to venture beyond the simplest Stata constructs would need to be 
familiar with some of its contents, especially the first sections on 
macros.  Use of different types of quotes and macro expansion are 
explained.  Your path to learning Stata will be much smoother as you will 
then also be able to tackle some of the topics in the Programming Manual 
(such as foreach and forvalues) which are as valuable to non-programmers as 
they are to programmers.

HTH

Phil




At 06:29 PM 28/12/2006 -0500, you wrote:

> It worked!
>
> Thanks.
>
> What's with the quote marks? like in :
>
> di "`var'"
>
> I see 3 types " ' and ` (this last one, I am not sure I have on my keyboard)
>
> Thanks for your patience.
>
> *
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Philip Ryan
Associate Professor,
Discipline of Public Health

Director, Data Management & Analysis Centre

Associate Dean (IT)
Faculty of Health Sciences

postal address:
Department of Public Health
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South Australia

location:
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tel 61 8 8303 3570
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http://www.public-health.adelaide.edu.au/
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