Replacing string local macro with numbers to string local macro with formatted numbers

[Paula de Souza Leao Spinola]

I would like to change the local macro

local add_range = "[ 2.74571, 5.75474]" 

to

local add_range = "[2.74 - 5.75]" 

[Mike Lacy]

Within the relatively obscure material revealed by -help extended_fcn-, there is documentation for various useful manipulations with local macros. Were it not for StataList, I'd never have known about that stuff. There, among other things, one can find out how to put the produced by a -display- command into a macro, which can be useful, if somewhat messy. In the current case, a one line solution is:

local add_range: display  = "[" %4.2f 2.74571 ", " %4.2f 5.75474 "]"
display "`add_range'"

[Nick Cox]

Easier to do the formatting before you combine afterwards.

Your two values come from somewhere.

. local lower 2.74571

. local upper 5.75474

. local wanted [

. local wanted `wanted' `: di %3.2f `lower''

. local wanted `wanted' ,

. local wanted `wanted' `: di %3.2f `upper''

. local wanted `wanted' ]

. di "`wanted'"