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  • Variables Window's varlist syntax, Stata 15 vs 14

    Hello Statalist,

    I have just upgraded from Stata 14 to 15 and am curious about the behavior of the Variables Window when exporting a varlist to the Command Window.

    In Stata 14, whenever one would highlight a range of variables in the Variables Window, and then send them to the Command Window via the small arrow icon in the first column, the entire varlist would be sent, with each individual variable separated by a space.
    -- I found this to be a very useful method to avoid typing when coding, as variables of interest are often together at the top of the Variables Window when you're writing, browsing & working through an issue.

    In Stata 15 though, any time a range of more than 3 variables are selected in the Variables Window and then sent to the Command Window they are sent with a hyphenated syntax, which is dependent upon the particular order of the variables at the time.
    -- This is much less useful to me & is not very conducive to reproducible code, since the variables of interest are often scattered throughout the dataset when the dofile is being run from the start. Now I have to hit the small arrow in the first column for each and every variable I want, which is much more time consuming.


    I was hopeful that Edit > Preferences would contain a setting option I could toggle, switching back but it does not.
    Is anyone aware of how I can revert the behavior back to exporting the entire varlist separated by spaces?


    More on the two different varlist syntaxes I'm describing available here.
    I'm comparing the first varlist syntax
    Code:
    list length turn
    to the third
    Code:
    list v1-v4

    This is my first post, although I have been browsing Statalist diligently for over a year now to find answers to various questions.
    Thank you for your help!
    -VA

  • #2
    As Vincent Armentano accurately described, this behavior was indeed changed in Stata 15 to better accommodate long variable list produced by the Variables window. We will add a setting that will restore the original behavior. That change will be available in a future update and it will look something like the image below. The default will continue to be the current behavior where varlist are produced in compact form. Vincent Armentano for now you can use copy and paste or drag and drop to obtain the full list of variables.

    Click image for larger version

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    Last edited by sladmin; 02 Oct 2017, 09:11. Reason: Added image

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    • #3
      Thank you for answering so quickly James. It's wonderful that StataCorp always takes user feedback into account.

      Appreciate the upcoming option! Looking forward to the update.

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