Re: st: have string macro default in syntax

[Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com>]

By the way, this was not quite what I suggested.

You have

if "`stat'"!="" {
   graph pie varname, by(varname) plabel(_all `stat')
}
else {
   graph pie varname, by(varname) plabel(_all percent)
}

which I would code as

if "`stat'" == "" local stat "percent"
graph pie varname, by(varname) plabel(_all `stat')

The difference is a matter of taste, but if shorter code is good, it's
two lines to six.

On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 6:40 PM, tashi lama <ltashi32@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks. To the last comment, I am using odbc to get the varnames. I decided not putting in the question to be concise. I was actually trying to avoid 'if' somethng like we do for integers i.e. [firm(int -1)] .  I had done something like this prior to posting. At least, the way you suggested makes my code shorter.
>
> syntax, [firm(str)]
> if "`stat'"!="" {
>   graph pie varname, by(varname) plabel(_all `stat')
> }
> else {
>   graph pie varname, bu(varname) plabel(_all percent)
> }
>

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