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st: Re: RE: Re: RE: RE: Re: Separation anxiety (extreme penalty if mistype -separate- command)


From   "Martin Weiss" <[email protected]>
To   <[email protected]>
Subject   st: Re: RE: Re: RE: RE: Re: Separation anxiety (extreme penalty if mistype -separate- command)
Date   Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:57:10 +0100

Yeah, there is really no virus scanner for ado-files; might be a neat business model, though. Inadvertently -drop-ping all data is just about the worst thing that can happen in Stata short of an outright crash...

HTH
Martin
_______________________
----- Original Message ----- From: "Feiveson, Alan H. (JSC-SK311)" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 8:54 PM
Subject: st: RE: Re: RE: RE: Re: Separation anxiety (extreme penalty if mistype -separate- command)


Martin - Yes, it was gross ignorance. That program was written in 1996,
when I didn't know much about programming with a -clear- option. Back
then, I didn't know the difference betwewen a ".do" and an ".ado" file,
so I made everything an "ado" file, which then put it into my ado path
without my realizing it.  I shudder to think how many others like this
are lurking in those old files!


Al

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Martin Weiss
Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 1:48 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: st: Re: RE: RE: Re: Separation anxiety (extreme penalty if
mistype -separate- command)

No intrusion into Alan`s work practices intended, but I have a hard time
imagining that you would have a -prog- on your ado-path that -drops
_all- without at least the -, clear- option being present...

HTH
Martin
_______________________
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nick Cox" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 8:41 PM
Subject: st: RE: RE: Re: Separation anxiety (extreme penalty if mistype
-separate- command)


I am glad it wasn't a -separate- problem.

The command -separate- itself has never been abbreviatable. When it
was being written one small issue was whether the intended name leant
itself to minor spelling mistakes. ("separate" was one of those words
I had to check repeatedly in a dictionary.) The decision was that if
the user typed -sep_e_rate-, this is promptly corrected with a little
message and diversion of the command to -separate-, as some users may
have discovered. (That is, there is an undocumented -sep_e_rate-
command.) (I add the _ _ only to stop this mailer continually
correcting the
misspelling.) This may still be the only instance in which Stata will
accept, and correct, incorrect spelling. An odd side-effect of this
episode is that my long-continued difficulties over the word have
disappeared.

Nick
[email protected]

Feiveson, Alan H. (JSC-SK311)

Sorry about the needless anxiety - As Martin suggested, I did have an
old -sep-program lying around that dropped _all. Thanks, Martin

Martin Weiss

If that is true, it is pretty serious. So I get "unrecognized command:
sep"
with my 10.1 Stata. Your error "invalid syntax" makes me think you
have a command that I do not have. What does -which sep- tell you?

Feiveson, Alan H.

Hello - More than once I have inadvertently typed something like "sep

var, by(cat)", when I meant to type "separate var,by(cat)" . The
result is an error, but far worse, Stata wipes out my whole data set
when I do this, or even if I simply type "sep":


. use rad_protein_collapsed_4group_binomial.dta

. des,short

Contains data from rad_protein_collapsed_4group_binomial.dta
 obs:            24
vars:            52                          20 Nov 2008 12:42
size:         4,464 (99.9% of memory free)
Sorted by:  rad  time  group

. sep
invalid syntax
r(198);

. des,short

Contains data
 obs:             0
vars:             0
size:             0 (100.0% of memory free)
Sorted by:


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