First, I've changed the name from STATA to
Stata in the running thread title. There are
pedantic, aesthetic, and synaesthetic objections
to the form "STATA", namely, it's wrong; it's
ugly; and to many people it sounds like SHOUTING.
please whisper...
I'd turn the discussion about output aesthetics
around. I'm interested in learning if anyone
thought that anyone else was claiming that
statistical program output _was_ typically
suitable for straight reproduction in reports.
Statistical output, almost always, gives you
* more results than you really want or need
(because somebody might want some of them)
* more decimal places than you really want or need
(because somebody might want some of them)
* identifiers (e.g. variable names) that you
and the software contract to use together, because
no language can support the natural language you
might well rather use instead
* a layout you don't want (because how can
the program know what you format you want, unless
you specify that in total detail).
Of course, none of this stops users or
StataCorp giving us tools for the report
generation stage.
On a different note, I did a quick hack
at firing up a window holding your
variable names, storage types, variable
labels and value labels. All it involves
is creating some variables to hold the
information temporarily and then opening
a -browse- window on those variables. Some
people might want to play. I doubt I can
push the idea any further.
program dbrowse
version 8
syntax [varlist]
local nvars : word count `varlist'
preserve
if `nvars' > _N {
set obs `nvars'
}
foreach v in _varname _storage _format _vallabel _varlabel {
capture gen `v' = ""
if _rc {
di as err "`v' already exists"
exit 498
}
}
tokenize `varlist'
qui forval i = 1/`nvars' {
replace _varname = "``i''" in `i'
replace _storage = "`: type ``i'''" in `i'
replace _format = "`: format ``i'''" in `i'
replace _vallabel = "`: value label ``i'''" in `i'
replace _varlabel = "`: variable label ``i'''" in `i'
}
browse _varname _storage _format _vallabel _varlabel in 1/`nvars'
end
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/
