st: list long string variables in Stata8.2 SE

[Arnold Kester <arnold.kester@stat.unimaas.nl>]

Dear listers,

I have several string variables of up to 244 chars length (stata-se). I 
often want to list these for a selection of the subjects and print a 
list of the patient identification nr (patnr) and the string var if 
that's not empty.

format stringvar %-244s
list patnr stringvar if stringvar~="", noobs notrim

does the trick. The format statement is to get left-aligned output, 
which already improves it a lot. An annoying point is that all string 
will be filled with blanks to the length of the longest string, wasting 
a lot of screen area/paper, and hampering readability.

My log file illustrates:
(this gets messed-up even more in the mail, sorry for that)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----
       log:  /home/arnold/longstringdata.log
  log type:  text
 opened on:   9 Feb 2004, 15:17:53

. insheet using longstringdata, delim(" ") clear
(2 vars, 3 obs)

. format stringvar %-244s

. list, notrim noobs

    patnr   stringvar 
>
>
        1   This is a long string, that is, it is fairly long, but not 
extremel
> y so
>
        2   Ths s a shorty 
>
>
        3   This is really really really a very very very very very 
very long l
> ong
> long long long long long Long LOng LONG string

. log close
       log:  /home/arnold/longstringdata.log
  log type:  text
 closed on:   9 Feb 2004, 15:18:23
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----

What I would like is this format for the list:

--------------------------------------------------
. list, notrim noobs really_nice_print

>   patnr   stringvar 
        1   This is a long string, that is, it is fairly long, but not
            extremely so
        2   Ths s a shorty 
        3   This is really really really a very very very very very very
            long long long long long long long Long LOng LONG string
.
-----------------------------------------------------

Is this at all possible in Stata? Or should try and do it in latex?

Regards,
Arnold Kester

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