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Re: RE: st: Stata 10.1


From   David Kantor <[email protected]>
To   [email protected]
Subject   Re: RE: st: Stata 10.1
Date   Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:32:59 -0400

Thanks so much for clearing up that mystery. It's also interesting to hear about the history of these various other features.
--DK
At 12:03 PM 8/14/2008, you wrote:

David Kantor <[email protected]> asked,

> Speaking of the history of Stata, does anyone know what the reserved
> word -with- is/was for?  It is a reserved word, but as far as I know,
> there is no command that uses it. Or am I wrong about that?  Was it
> ever used? For what?  If not, what was the intent?

In a very early version of Stata, even before the release of Stata 1.0
in January of 1985, the syntax of the -replace- command was

        replace <varname> with <#> [in] [if]

The "with <#>" part was replaced with "= <exp>" once we realized we
could merge the code for -replace- and -generate-.

The early syntax of Stata was based on a combination of Wylbur, CMS,
Unix, and C.  -replace- (and -in-'s #, #/#, and #/l syntax) came from
Wylbur.  Return codes -- and the r(); notation -- came from CMS, as
did the recently mentioned (and long dead) -spool- command.  -spool-
became -log-.  The idea behind -log- came from CMS.  The rest is pretty
obviously Unix and C.
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