Re: st: Problem with ultraedit and comments

[Neil Shephard <nshephard@nhs.net>]

Beth Gifford wrote:
> Hello there
> I typically use ultraedit as my text editor. However if I copy and
> paste from ultraedit to stata, stata will not recognize comments that
> are written as ///  or /* */
>   
I've not used ultraedit (Emacs and ESS is my prefered poison), but what 
do you mean Stata will not recognize comments that are copy and pasted in?

If its a chunk of code with comments that your pasting in then its akin 
to typing them at Stata's prompt and you will get the same results.  
Copy and paste the following into Stata...

***eg.do***
sysuse auto, clear
/* Tabulate the mpg variable */
tab mpg
/// Regress weight and length on mpg
regress mpg weight length
*************

You'll get the results....
. sysuse auto, clear
(1978 Automobile Data)

. regress mpg weight length price

     Source |       SS       df       MS              Number of obs 
=      74
-------------+------------------------------           F(  3,    70) =   
46.63
      Model |  1628.52531     3  542.841771           Prob > F      =  
0.0000
   Residual |  814.934146    70  11.6419164           R-squared     =  
0.6665
-------------+------------------------------           Adj R-squared =  
0.6522
      Total |  2443.45946    73  33.4720474           Root MSE      =   
3.412

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        mpg |      Coef.   Std. Err.      t    P>|t|     [95% Conf. 
Interval]
-------------+----------------------------------------------------------------
     weight |  -.0030371   .0017701    -1.72   0.091    -.0065675    
.0004933
     length |  -.0965706    .057716    -1.67   0.099    -.2116815    
.0185403
      price |  -.0001733   .0001676    -1.03   0.305    -.0005076     
.000161
      _cons |   49.68492   6.329089     7.85   0.000     37.06195    
62.30789
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

. sysuse auto, clear
(1978 Automobile Data)

.
. /* Tabulate the mpg variable */
unrecognized command:  / invalid command name
r(199);

.
. tab mpg

   Mileage |
     (mpg) |      Freq.     Percent        Cum.
------------+-----------------------------------
        12 |          2        2.70        2.70
        14 |          6        8.11       10.81
        15 |          2        2.70       13.51
        16 |          4        5.41       18.92
        17 |          4        5.41       24.32
        18 |          9       12.16       36.49
        19 |          8       10.81       47.30
        20 |          3        4.05       51.35
        21 |          5        6.76       58.11
        22 |          5        6.76       64.86
        23 |          3        4.05       68.92
        24 |          4        5.41       74.32
        25 |          5        6.76       81.08
        26 |          3        4.05       85.14
        28 |          3        4.05       89.19
        29 |          1        1.35       90.54
        30 |          2        2.70       93.24
        31 |          1        1.35       94.59
        34 |          1        1.35       95.95
        35 |          2        2.70       98.65
        41 |          1        1.35      100.00
------------+-----------------------------------
     Total |         74      100.00

.
. /// Regress weight and length on mpg
unrecognized command:  / invalid command name
r(199);

.
. regress mpg weight length

     Source |       SS       df       MS              Number of obs 
=      74
-------------+------------------------------           F(  2,    71) =   
69.34
      Model |  1616.08062     2  808.040312           Prob > F      =  
0.0000
   Residual |  827.378835    71   11.653223           R-squared     =  
0.6614
-------------+------------------------------           Adj R-squared =  
0.6519
      Total |  2443.45946    73  33.4720474           Root MSE      =  
3.4137

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        mpg |      Coef.   Std. Err.      t    P>|t|     [95% Conf. 
Interval]
-------------+----------------------------------------------------------------
     weight |  -.0038515    .001586    -2.43   0.018    -.0070138   
-.0006891
     length |  -.0795935   .0553577    -1.44   0.155    -.1899736    
.0307867
      _cons |   47.88487    6.08787     7.87   0.000       35.746    
60.02374
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

.

So there are error messages about not recognising the comments.....

. ///
unrecognized command:  / invalid command name
r(199);

. /*
unrecognized command:  / invalid command name
r(199);

...but Stata soon gets over that and moves on to the next line of text 
that you've pasted.

This isn't really a problem (to my mind at least).

Neil

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