Thanks to Kit Baum, a new package -fs- has been posted on
SSC containing a single small utility, also called -fs-.
-fs- is to show names of files in compact form. The
name is chosen with the hope of reminding you of
the -ds- command, whose mission in life is showing
names of variables in compact form.
Your reaction to this may well be "What! Surely,
this is already done by -dir- and -ls-?"
Yes indeed, but -fs- may be worth your attention
for some specific details.
First, it tries very hard to be compact. Depending
on your typical filename lengths, the output
should be a fair bit more compact than even (say)
-dir, wide-. Of course, this is done by leaving
out information, but if all you want is names, you
shouldn't mind.
Second, the syntax is
fs [filespec [filespec [ ... ]]]
while the optional file specifications indicate filenames
or (more commonly) sets of filenames using wildcards * or ?.
Thus unlike -dir- or -ls-, -fs- may be given more than one
file specification. This is possibly useful when you want
to do something like
. fs *.dta *.do
Also unlike either of those commands, -fs- shows any hidden
files. This might be considered a misfeature....
Third, although it is not documented in the help file,
programmers and others might like to note that the
list of files is also returned as `r(files)'.
Naturally, if this is the kind of thing that interests
you, you will already know about the extended function
documented at -help macro-.
Fourth, -fs- is an advertisement for a very nice subroutine
for display in columns, already used within -classutil-
and -ds-. Programmers may want to take a look. In fact,
most of the code is stolen from -classutil-.
Nick
[email protected]
*
* For searches and help try:
* http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
* http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
