Re: st: Re: Recognizing the full length of a macro

[Phil Schumm <pschumm@uchicago.edu>]

At 9:38 AM -0500 3/4/05, Michael Blasnik wrote:
> I Agree-- it should be made more clear that all of the "regular" 
> string functions (those used with = ) can/will return incorrect 
> results when used on text strings longer than the maximum allowed 
> string variable length. Perhaps they should just include a line in 
> the help file stating that they are not intended for use on macros.

FWIW, this issue is discussed in [U] 21.3.4 (Section 21.3 being the 
section on macros).  It is also indicated under [R] limits, where the 
length of a string in a string expression is defined as 80 (244 for 
Stata/SE).  That said, I agree that this is an issue that can bite 
people, and for this reason a slightly more prominent warning might 
be warranted.


-- Phil
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