Re: Re: st: One help file for two program

[khigbee@stata.com]

Daniel Klein <klein.daniel.81@gmail.com> is correct:

> you can point to another help file simply saving the one line
> 
> .h john
> 
> (note the dot is not followed by a space) in the file johni.sthlp. If
> you then type
> 
> h johni
> 
> the help file for -john- (john.sthlp) will pop up.

This is how users add aliases for help files.  It is better than
having several differently named files with identical content.
Using ".h" you can avoid editing several files every time you
want to make a change.

Long ago, Stata used .h to create all of it's help aliases -- and
the method still works and is available to you.  However, now the
official Stata help files determine aliases from alias .maint
files.  We did this because of the large number of aliases that
we were wanting for the help system.

The help alias files have names like xhelp_alias.maint, and
there is one for each letter.  If curious, you can

    . viewsource xhelp_alias.maint

to see the alias file for the letter x, or

    . viewsource bhelp_alias.maint

to see the alias file for the letter b.  The files have two columns,
the second column is the name of the help file to show when help is
requested for the item in the first column.


Ken Higbee    khigbee@stata.com
StataCorp     1-800-STATAPC

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