Re: st: How to link the help file for a command to its immediateversion (or generally add aliases)

[Nick Cox <n.j.cox@stata.com>]

Spelling out a point made by Sergiy Radyakin:

Suppose you write foobar.ado and want Stata to recognise

foo
foob
fooba

as abbreviations. The slow but sure way to do this is by wrapper files

---- foo.ado
program foo
	foobar `0'
end
----

---- foob.ado
program foob
	foobar `0'
end
----

---- fooba.ado
program fooba
	foobar `0'
end
----

In other words, it is easy, if a little tedious. `0' is the way to echo 
whatever followed the command name to the command being called.

It would be good practice to include a -version- statement in each program.

However, if any of the abbreviations are official Stata commands, or 
abbreviations thereof, you will get them instead, unless in some cases 
you mess with -adopath- (which is emphatically not recommended).

Nick
n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk

Eva Poen wrote:


> Is it possible, for a user written command, to link the help file for
> -command- to -commandi-? I.e., when typing -help commandi-, what
> should show up is the help file for -command-, because it's all
> documented in one file.
>
> I came across the *help_alias.maint files in the Stata installation,
> which I think do the job for Stata's official commands. I can't see a
> way to add aliases (any, really, also abbreviations) for non-official
> commands.
>
> I'm forgetful with options, so I get to call the help files for my own
> programs from time to time. Combined with my habit of inventing long,
> akward names for programs, this is a lot of typing...
>
> Eva
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