-findname- updated on SSC

[Nick Cox]

The last such post was in 2012: https://www.stata.com/statalist/arch.../msg00597.html

Thanks as ever to Kit Baum, findname files have been updated on SSC.

findname is a community-contributed superset (functionally, not always syntactically) of official command ds (to which I contributed). I came to dislike some of the syntax of ds that I introduced myself and added some features and findname was the result.

findname was published formally in the Stata Journal in 2010 and has been updated there since then. In an up-to-date Stata you should see this:

. search findname, sj

Search of official help files, FAQs, Examples, and Stata Journals

SJ-23-4 dm0048_5  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Software update for findname
        (help findname if installed)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  N. J. Cox
        Q4/23   SJ 23(4):1096
        options vallabelcountdef() and vallabelcountuse() have been
        extended to allow zero (0) as an argument

SJ-20-2 dm0048_4  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Software update for findname
        (help findname if installed)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  N. J. Cox
        Q2/20   SJ 20(2):504
        new options include columns()

SJ-15-2 dm0048_3  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Software update for findname
        (help findname if installed)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  N. J. Cox
        Q2/15   SJ 15(2):605--606
        updated to be able to find strL variables

SJ-12-1 dm0048_2  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Software update for findname
        (help findname if installed)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  N. J. Cox
        Q1/12   SJ 12(1):167
        correction for handling embedded double quote characters

SJ-10-4 dm0048_1  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Software update for findname
        (help findname if installed)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  N. J. Cox
        Q4/10   SJ 10(4):691
        update for not option

SJ-10-2 dm0048  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Speaking Stata: Finding variables
        (help findname if installed)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  N. J. Cox
        Q2/10   SJ 10(2):281--296
        produces a list of variable names showing which variables
        have specific properties, such as being of string type, or
        having value labels attached, or having a date format

Now in 2025 I have added a new option cslocal() as discussed in another thread.
https://www.statalist.org/forums/for...s-of-variables

But it seems that an update on SSC is overdue.

In due course (which means late 2025 or early 2026) a formal update will be published in the Stata Journal, but for now the version on SSC is more up-to-date. As the output above indicates, several options have been added since the 2010 paper.

[Nick Cox]

This update is now also published in Stata Journal 25(4). For example

net sj 25-4
net install dm0048_6

where in the second command you would need to specify also , replace if updating a previous installation. If you updated via SSC earlier (see previous post), none of that is needed.