help mata mm_strexpand()
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Title

mm_strexpand() -- Expand string argument

Syntax

string scalar mm_strexpand(s, list)

string scalar mm_strexpand(s, list, default)

string scalar mm_strexpand(s, list, default, unique)

string scalar mm_strexpand(s, list, default, unique, errtxt)

real scalar _mm_strexpand(res, s, list [, default, unique])

where

s: string scalar s list: string vector list default: string scalar default unique: real scalar unique errtxt: string scalar errtxt

Description

mm_strexpand() returns the first element in string vector list that matches string s if abbreviated to the number of characters contained in s. mm_strexpand() aborts with error, if no match is found.

mm_strexpand() returns string default, if s is empty (or empty string, if default is omitted).

If list contains several possible matches, the first match is returned by mm_strexpand(). However, unique!=0 causes mm_strexpand() to abort with error in the case of multiple matches.

mm_strexpand()'s standard error message is "3499 "s" invalid" if no match is found or "3498 "s" invalid" if unique!=0 and multiple matches are found. Use string errtxt to specify an alternative error text. The error code is always 3499 or 3498.

_mm_strexpand() is like mm_strexpand() except that the expanded string, if a match is found, is stored in res and, rather than aborting with error, the error code is returned. The error code is 0 if no error occurred. The type of res does not matter. It is replaced.

Remarks

mm_strexpand() is useful to parse string scalar arguments in Mata functions that are intended to be used interactively. Suppose that you want to program a function kerneldensity(x, kernel) where kernel is one of "epanechnikov", "biweight", "gaussian", or "epan2". Coding

: function kerneldensity(x, | string scalar kernel) > { > k = mm_strexpand(kernel,("epanechnikov", "biweight", > "gaussian", "epan2"), "gaussian") > ... > }

enables the user to type abbreviated kernel names. For example,

: kerneldensity(x, "e")

uses the epanechnikov kernel. Furthermore, note that "gaussian" is the default in this example. Thus

: kerneldensity(x)

uses the gaussian kernel.

_mm_strexpand() can be used, for example, as follows:

: function kerneldensity(x, | string scalar kernel) > { > err = _mm_strexpand(k="", kernel,("epanechnikov", > "biweight", "gaussian", "epan2"), "gaussian") > if (err) { > ... err ... > } > else { > ... k ... > } > }

Conformability

mm_strexpand(s, list, default, unique, errtxt) s: 1 x 1 list: r x 1 or 1 x c default: 1 x 1 unique: 1 x 1 errtxt: 1 x 1 result: 1 x 1.

Diagnostics

mm_strexpand() aborts with error if list is void (meaning that no match is found).

Source code

mm_strexpand.mata

Author

Ben Jann, ETH Zurich, jann@soz.gess.ethz.ch

Also see