st: RE: unconventional use of if condition

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

The parentheses here are cosmetic, but in other circumstances they could force a particular order of evaluation. 

Otherwise there is nothing at all unconventional here. The help for -if- makes it explicit that 

if exp single_command

is a legal form, so that the braces { } are not needed. Indeed as from version 8 they are not allowed. 

Before version 8, things were different. See -help whatsnew7to8-. 

You are asked to say _where_ user-written commands from. I wouldn't infer anything about a program from whether its authors have Ph.D. degrees. 

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

tashi lama

    In the fetchyahooquotes.ado written by Mehmet F. Diche, Ph.D. and John Levendis, Ph.D., I encountered following use of if

     if ("`start'"!="") drop if date<(date("`start'", "DMY"))
     if ("`end'"!="") drop if date>(date("`end'", "DMY"))

I was under the impression and the documentation rightly says to precede 'if' with braces ("{") followed by command in the next line. Sth like this 

 
if x==4 {

 .....

}

Could someone explain me this?

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