HELP Friday June 4 13:23:22 2010 Page 1

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Statistics/Data Analysis

help help dialog: help

Title

[R] help Display online help

Stata's help system

There are several kinds of help available to the Stata user. For more information, see Advice on getting help. The information below is technical details about Stata's
help command.

Syntax

Display help information in Viewer

help [command_or_topic_name ] [, nonew name(viewername ) marker(markername )]

Display help information in Results window

chelp [command_or_topic_name ]

Description

The help command displays help information about the specified command or topic.

Stata for Windows, Stata for Macintosh, and Stata for Unix(GUI):
help launches a new Viewer to display help for the specified command or topic. If help is not followed by a command or a topic name, Stata launches the Viewer and
displays help contents, the table of contents for the online help.

Help may be accessed either by selecting Help > Stata command and filling in the desired command name or by typing help followed by a command or topic name.

chelp will display help in the Results window.

Stata for Unix(console):

Typing help followed by a command name or a topic name will display help on the console.

If help is not followed by a command or a topic name, a description of how to use the help system is displayed.

Stata for Unix(both GUI and console):

man is a synonym for chelp.

Options

nonew specifies that a new Viewer window not be opened for the help topic if a Viewer window is already open. The default is for a new Viewer window to be opened each
time help is typed so that multiple help files may be viewed at once. nonew causes the help file to be displayed in the topmost open Viewer.

name(viewername ) specifies that help be displayed in a Viewer window named viewername . If the named window already exists, its contents will be replaced. If the named
window does not exist, it will be created.

marker(markername ) specifies that the help file be opened to the position of markername within the help file.

Remarks

To obtain help for any Stata command, type help command or select Help > Stata Command... and fill in command .

help is best explained by examples.

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To obtain help for Type

regress help regress
postestimation tools for regress help regress postestimation
or help regress post
graph option xlabel() help graph xlabel()
Stata function strpos() help strpos()
Mata function optimize() help mata optimize()

Tips

o help displays a subject table of contents to the online help.

o help guide displays a table of contents for basic Stata concepts.

o help estimation commands displays an alphabetical listing of all Stata estimation commands.

o help functions displays help on Stata functions by category.

o help mata functions displays a subject table of contents to Mata's functions.

o help ts glossary displays the glossary for the time-series manual, and similarly for the other Stata specialy manuals.

See [U] 4 Stata's online help and search facilities for a complete description of how to use help.

What to do when you see more

Stata pauses and displays the characters more at the bottom of the results window whenever the output from a command is about to scroll off the screen.

Action Result

Press Enter or Return One more line of text is displayed

Press b The previous screen of text is displayed

Press Ctrl-K more condition is cleared and output stops

Press q more condition is cleared and output stops

Press any other key The next screen of text is displayed

(such as space bar)

PCs:
Press Ctrl-Break Stata stops processing the command ASAP

Macintosh:
Press Command-. " " " " " "

Unix(Console):
Press Ctrl-C " " " " " "

Unix(GUI):
Press Ctrl-Break " " " " " "

more happens all the time, not just in chelp, since Stata does not scroll information off the screen without your permission.

These same keystrokes will work in response to a more given by other commands, except that pressing b works only with chelp. You cannot press b to back up to the
previous screen with other commands.

Interrupting Stata commands

You can press Ctrl-Break (or Command-. or Ctrl-C) at any time to interrupt any command in Stata, not just in response to more .
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Also see

Manual: [R] help

Online: contents, [R] hsearch, [R] net search, [R] search