Re: st: What's wrong with -syntax, [now]-?

[Richard Williams <Richard.A.Williams.5@ND.edu>]

At 02:47 PM 6/22/2005 -0400, Chris Ruebeck wrote:
> This post seems trivial, but the issue did cost me some non-trivial 
> debugging time.
>
> It seems that an option named "now" won't work.  It can't be that option 
> names must have more than three characters, because an option named "yes" 
> works.  I used -search now- to see if it's a reserved word, but got no 
> hits.  Although -findit now- is an amusing command to issue, it's also not 
> surprising that too many results are returned to be useful for 
> investigation of this minor annoyance.
>
> Eureka (just as I was composing the subject for this post)!  I'll continue 
> to post it anyway for the interest of the non-gurus on the list.  It's the 
> fact that "now" begins with "no".  See /optionally_off/ in -help syntax-.
>
> Chris
>
>
> . program define junk
>   1. syntax , [now]
>   2. di "`now'"
>   3. end
>
> . junk, now
Actually, you can have an option called "now" BUT you have to start it with 
one or more capital letters in the syntax command, e.g.

. program define junk
  1. syntax, [Now]
  2. di "`now'"
  3. end

. junk, now
now

Which can also be executed this way:

. junk, n
now


Also, what you've actually got in your original program is a local macro 
called "w".  So,

. program drop junk

. program define junk
  1. syntax, [now]
  2. di "`w'"
  3. end

. junk, now
now

I find the "no" coding confusing so I try to avoid it - and it is easy to 
make mistakes if you are not careful or do not know about it.


-------------------------------------------
Richard Williams, Notre Dame Dept of Sociology
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