st: regular expression functions in MATA

[Federico Belotti <f.belotti@econometrics.it>]

Dear all,

I've a question about mata. I'm working with the -regexm()- function in 
mata.

-regexm()- function seems to work fine with vectors. The same is not 
true for -regexs()-, because a loop is needed.
Is there a way to use -regexs()- function in mata with vectors?

The following is an example:

clear
input str18 date
20jan2007
16June06
06sept1985
21june04
4july90
9jan1999
6aug99
19august2003
end

*** -regexs()- function works perfectly with stata
gen day = regexs(0) if regexm(date, "^[0-9]+")
list day

tomata

capture mata: mata drop example()
mata

real matrix example(var)
{
/// -regexm()- function seems to work directly with vectors

one = regexm(var, "^[0-9]+")
one

two = J(8, 1, "")
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