st: Expanding characteristics of variables with 32-character names

[Matthew White <mwhite@poverty-action.org>]

Hi Statalist users,

Using Stata 13 on Windows 7, I'm attaching a characteristic to
variables and then using single quotes to expand the characteristic.
For example:

sysuse auto, clear
char foreign[Y] 1
char list foreign[]
display `foreign[Y]'

However, I'm having trouble when the variable name is 32 characters long:

sysuse auto, clear

char foreign[Y] 1
char list foreign[]
display `foreign[Y]'

local var : di _dup(32) "x"
rename foreign `var'

char list `var'[]
display ``var'[Y]'

`var'[Y] still exists, but ``var'[Y]' doesn't expand to anything. Has
anyone seen this problem before?

I can get around it by using the -:char- extended macro function:

display `:char `var'[Y]'

This correctly displays 1. However, I'd prefer to use the ``var'[Y]'
syntax if possible.

Thank you,
Matt

-- 
Matthew White
Senior Project Associate
Innovations for Poverty Action
101 Whitney Avenue, New Haven, CT 06510 USA
www.poverty-action.org
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