Many thanks for the explanation.
Jean Salvati
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected]
> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Alan Riley
> Sent: Friday, July 15, 2005 2:21 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: st: Error message when trying to save a file named "aux"
>
> Jean Salvati ([email protected]) discovered that a file named 'aux'
> cannot be created:
> > ...
> > Is "aux" a reserved name? Or is this a known bug? I
> searched the FAQ
> > but didn't find any information about that.
>
> This is due to old DOS device names which are still reserved
> by Microsoft even in modern versions of Windows. Every time
> a file is used by a Stata command, Stata could compare the
> filename against the list of reserved names, but this could
> slow down do-files and ado-files if this comparison were done
> on every -save-, -use-, -insheet-, -graph save-, etc.
> command. This is the first time of which I am aware that a
> user has encountered one of these names in the long history
> of Stata for Windows.
>
> The full list of reserved names can be found here:
>
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-
> us/fileio/fs/naming_a_file.asp
> <http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en
> -us/fileio/fs/naming_a_file.asp>
>
> The relevant section reads
>
> "Do not use the following reserved device names for the name of a
> file: CON, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, COM5,
> COM6, COM7,
> COM8, COM9, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, LPT4, LPT5, LPT6, LPT7, LPT8, and
> LPT9. Also avoid these names followed by an extension,
> for example,
> NUL.tx7."
>
> We will create a FAQ for www.stata.com which details this.
>
>
> --Alan
> ([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/
>
*
* 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/
