Two new programs, -rqrs- and -which_version-, available from SSC

[daniel klein]

Thanks, as always to Kit Baum, two new programs, rqrs and which_version, are available for download from the SSC.

rqrs is a simplistic program that basically acts as a wrapper around ssc install and net install. I use rqrs to document the community-contributed commands that I use in a do-file and to facilitate the installation of those community-contributed commands on other machines. An example looks like this

version 15

rqrs findname

…

When I do/run this do-file, rqrs checks whether findname (Cox, SSC; SJ) is found along the ado-path by calling Stata’s which command. If the command is not found, a window will pop up and ask whether I want to install findname now. If I confirm, findname will be installed from the SSC.

If for no good reason, I wanted to download findname from SJ, if it was not found along the ado-path, I would set up my do-file as

version 15

rqrs findname dm0048_3 , from(sj15-2)

…

Here, I list the command that I want to use, findname, and the name of the respective package that contains the command, dm0048_3. I also indicate that the dm0048_3 package is to be downloaded from the Stata Journal 15, issue 2.

Because my do-files would only work if rqrs was installed, I would add the core of rqrs.ado explicitly near the top of my do-file

version 15

capture noisily which rqrs
if ( _rc ) {
    capture window stopbox rusure "Do you want to install rqrs?"
    if ( _rc ) exit 111
    ssc install rqrs
}

rqrs ...

For more sophisticated approaches to installing required community-contributed commands, see adolist (Jann and Wehrli, SSC), copycode (Schneider, SSC), and usepackage (Booth, SSC).


which_version is an alternative to Stata’s which command that returns the location (full path and filename) of a command and, additionally, tries to extract the programmer’s version number. Here is an example

. which_version findname
c:\ado\plus/f\findname.ado
*! 1.0.4 NJC 24 March 2014 

. sreturn list

macros:
                 s(fn) : "c:\ado\plus/f\findname.ado"
            s(version) : "1.0.4"

Perhaps some of you find these programs useful.

Best
Daniel