Help with old code using renvars and presub

[Michael Todd]

Hi all:

Non-Stata user here trying to work through translating some Stata code that as left behind by a former team member into R code. For the most part, the syntax makes intuitive sense to me, but I wanted to double-check my interpretation of a short variable renaming piece where renvars was used.

Here's an example that parallels the actual statements and the variable names and other arguments.

frame new_frame {
keep if event=="event_1"
keep pid language event date///
p_sc_site ///
p_xvar1 p_xvar2 p_xvar3

rename p_sc_site site
renvars p_*, presub(p_ )
}

After a few Google searches and searching here, my best guess about this renvars statement is that the presub(p_ ) [(p underscore space)] specification is telling renvars to remove the p_ [p underscore] prefix from the beginning of the p_xvar variable names.

Am I on the right track, or is something else going on here?

Thanks so much!

[daniel klein]

I have not used renvars (from SJ 5-4) in a while but I believe you are right.

In "modern" Stata (since 2011), you would write that as

rename p_* *

[Nick Cox]

Correct. renvars had its day in the sun — in fact about a decade in the sun — but once rename was rewritten it became obsolete, otiose, superfluous, unnecessary, redundant and utterly unloved.