Re: st: length of a returned local using rclass

[Ulrich Kohler <kohler@wzb.eu>]

Am Dienstag, den 06.04.2010, 10:46 +0100 schrieb Miranda Kim:
> Hello,
> When writing a small program that saved a string (list of variables) 
> using -rclass- and -return local-, the list was prematurely truncated. I 
> therefore wonder if there a limit to the number of characters that can 
> be stored in a local macro using rclass, or if I should be looking for a 
> bug in my code?


Depending on the version of stata that limit is between 8,681 in Small
Stata and  1,081,511 in Stata SE/MP. In Intercooled Stata it is 
165,200 (see -help limits-). 

A frequent reason for truncated strings is the use of equal signs during
macro definition. Equal signs call the expression calculater, which
truncates string down to the maximum length of strings in expressions
(i.e. 244). Perhaps you may want to code

. return local varlist "`varlist'"  

instead of 

. return local varlist = "`varlist'"


Many regards
Uli


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