Local macro

[Sergiy Radyakin]

Dear All,

I am looking for a reference in Stata documentation where the local macro * (star) is defined.

Thank you, Sergiy

[William Lisowski]

Under what circumstances have you encountered the local macro * (star)?

[Rafal Raciborski (StataCorp)]

help syntax##description_of_options

[Sergiy Radyakin]

Rafal,

I think the reference you provided only explains the relationship between [*] and `options' (standard and documented feature of the syntax command), while what I am looking for is a relationship between X and `*' similarly explained (where X is I don't know what).

I believe `*' is probably something old, perhaps dating to the era when arguments were referred to by `1' ,`2' etc, and could be a collective way of denoting them?? Perhaps, similar to `0', but I can't find any formal confirmation of this anywhere.

Thank you, Sergiy

[Sergiy Radyakin]

William, it is almost in every StataCorp-supplied ado file. But they are rather long.

The following is a rather trivial example that strangely yields not empty result in the last output:

clear all

program define foobar
   display `"`0'"'
   display `"`1'"'
   display `"`2'"'
   display `"`*'"'   
 end
 
 foobar first(x) second(y)

[Rafal Raciborski (StataCorp)]

`0' contains exactly what the user typed, including odd spacing, quotation marks, etc.; * contains what the user typed but odd spacing, quotation marks, etc., are removed; see [U] User's Guide, section 18.4.

. foobar first(x)   second(y)  
first(x)   second(y)
first(x)
second(y)
first(x) second(y)

[William Lisowski]

The results of

clear all

program define foobar
   display `"`0'"'
   display `"`1'"'
   display `"`2'"'
   display `"`*'"'   
   macro list _all
end
 
foobar first(x) second(y)

run after a relaunch of Stata

. do "/var/folders/xr/lm5ccr996k7dspxs35yqzyt80000gp/T//SD53419.000000"

. clear all

. 
. program define foobar
  1.    display `"`0'"'
  2.    display `"`1'"'
  3.    display `"`2'"'
  4.    display `"`*'"'   
  5.    macro list _all
  6. end

.  
. foobar first(x) second(y)
first(x) second(y)
first(x)
second(y)
first(x) second(y)
S_level:        95
F1:             help advice;
F2:             describe;
F7:             save
F8:             use
S_ADO:          BASE;SITE;.;PERSONAL;PLUS;OLDPLACE
S_StataSE:      SE
S_FLAVOR:       Intercooled
S_OS:           MacOSX
S_OSDTL:        10.13.6
S_MACH:         Macintosh (Intel 64-bit)
_2:             second(y)
_1:             first(x)
_0:             first(x) second(y)

. 
end of do-file

suggest that `*' is not fully a local macro, but rather a deprecated version of what is now provided by `0', which is common in almost every StataCorp-supplied ado file that does not include `*' (which is, for example, 43 of the 51 ado files in the ado/base/a directory on my system).

But the post #4 shows you expected that. Perhaps you could have included the example from post #5 and the elaboration is post #4 in your original post to provide the necessary context to your question.

[William Lisowski]

My post #7 crossed with post #6, which reminds us that unfortunately there is a certain amount of arcane information to be found only in the Stata User's Guide rather than the variously titled "Reference" manuals.

Here's an example of the difference between the two.

. program define foobar
. program define foobar
  1.    display `"`0'"'
  2.    display `"`*'"'   
  3. end

.  
. foobar first( x )    "second(y)"
first( x )    "second(y)"
first( x ) second(y)

.

[Sergiy Radyakin]

Rafal, William, thank you very much for explaining. Reference to section 18.4 of the User's Guide is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you, Sergiy