st: RE: return null Mata

[Joe Canner <jcanner1@jhmi.edu>]

Anthony,

According to the Mata help, " return [without any arguments] causes the function to stop execution and return to the caller, returning nothing."

Is that what you wanted?

Regards,
Joe Canner
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu [mailto:owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] On Behalf Of Thomas, Anthony
Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2014 4:41 PM
To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
Subject: st: return null Mata

Hi All,

I'm sure there is an obvious answer to this question, but I can't seem
to figure it out. I have a Mata function that I want to return nothing
when some condition fails to be met (the function is ordinarily
supposed to return a string matrix). I was thinking something like:

if(something) return(NULL);

or if(something) return(0);

would work, but I get errors indicating the return type is not as
expected in either case. I'm guessing this is because NULL is really a
pointer and 0 is just being interpreted in its normal sense. How can I
get Mata to return nothing in one instance and a string matrix in
others?

Thanks,

Anthony
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