st: quotes in macros

[Keith Dear <keith.dear@anu.edu.au>]

I need to create a global macro containing several filenames, each of 
which contains a space. This is ok for a short list of short names:

glo list `""file one" "file two" "file three""'

but what I really want is

glo list `""rather long filename one" "rather long filename two"	///
	"ridiculously long filename three which takes a whole line"	///
		(etc etc)		///
	"'

This generates a syntax error, I suppose because quoted strings can't 
be split over lines.


Note that in a do-file, the following DOES work:

glo list first_filename_with_no_spaces	///
	"after the first, quotes strings with spaces are ok"	///
	"file three" "file four"

The problem comes only if the first name needs quoting. So a clumsy 
workaround is:

glo list null "file one" ///
	etc

foreach file of any $list {
	if "`file'"=="null" continue
...
}

But who wants that?
kd

(using Stata 9.2, Win-XP)














Dr Keith B.G. Dear
Senior Fellow in Biostatistics
National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health
Australian National University
Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia
Tel: 02 612 54865, Fax: 02 612 50740
http://nceph.anu.edu.au/Staff_Students/staff_pages/dear.php
CRICOS provider #00120C

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