-sysuse dir- lists sysuse files and data files in current directory (Stata v17.0)

[Robert Grant]

The title says it all really.

. ! ls *.dta

iris.dta
results.dta
samples.dta
sidanius.dta
speed.dta

. sysuse dir
auto.dta census.dta network1.dta sandstone.dta uslifeexp.dta
auto16.dta citytemp.dta network1a.dta sidanius.dta uslifeexp2.dta
auto2.dta citytemp4.dta nlsw88.dta sp500.dta voter.dta
autornd.dta educ99gdp.dta nlswide1.dta speed.dta xtline1.dta
bplong.dta gnp96.dta pop2000.dta surface.dta
bpwide.dta iris.dta results.dta tsline1.dta
cancer.dta lifeexp.dta samples.dta tsline2.dta

Stata 17.0 MP/4, update 09aug2021, Mac OS 10.14.6 ("Mojave")

[Bjarte Aagnes]

-sysuse- use example dataset installed with Stata, so why should -sysuse dir- return dta files in current dir which is not a example dataset. (reported to tech support)

[Leonardo Guizzetti]

I think what -sysuse- does is sensible, but then it is the documentation which may be misleading, which reads:

List example Stata datasets installed with Stata

        sysuse dir [, all]

However, all -sysuse dir- does is recursively search within all paths of -c(adopath)- and lists out any and all *.dta files that it finds within. On the one hand, this is sensible so that example dataset names are not hardcoded into the command. However, by including all of the -adopath- it is no longer restricted to Stata's example datasets.

[Bjarte Aagnes]

deleted.

[Craig Kerr]

I was also confused by this today. I found that on my Mac, I was able to get -sysuse dir- to display only the example data sets by first typing -cd- to change my working directory back to the main directory on my computer. It was previously set to the folder I have other data sets in. This should work so long as you do not have Stata data files in your main directory.

[Leonardo Guizzetti]

I was also confused by this today. I found that on my Mac, I was able to get -sysuse dir- to display only the example data sets by first typing -cd- to change my working directory back to the main directory on my computer. It was previously set to the folder I have other data sets in. This should work so long as you do not have Stata data files in your main directory.

This is not how the documented function of -sysuse dir- works. The current working directory is irrelevant to the function of -sysuse-.

[Craig Kerr]

This is not how the documented function of -sysuse dir- works. The current working directory is irrelevant to the function of -sysuse-.

Documented or not, this is how it's currently working on my Mac.

[Leonardo Guizzetti]

Documented or not, this is how it's currently working on my Mac.

This might be worth flagging to Technical Support then.