st: RE: How to get a list of the names of characters associated with a variable

["Nick Cox" <n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk>]

Perhaps you mean characteristics. See -help extended_fcn-. 

Nick 
n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk 

Clyde Schechter MA, MD 

I'm trying to write an ado file that will generalize the -lookfor-
command
so that it also searches for the target text in characters associated
with
variables.  (I need this because I have a data set with a large number
of
variables, and the key information is often found not in the label
[which
was truncated at 80 characters], but in a character--and the characters
are not consistently named.)

So my basic idea is:

foreach v of varlist _all {
     get a list of all characters associated with `v' in a local
char_list
     foreach c of local char_list {
          if index("`:char `v'[`c']'", "`target_string'") > 0 {
               found it -- generate suitable output
          }
     }
}

But I haven't found a way to get a list of all characters associated
with
`v'.  I can display them all with - char list `v'[] -, but that doesn't
return anything.

Anyone have any ideas about this, or an alternative way for me to
generalize -lookfor-?  Thanks in advance for any help.


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