{smcl}
{* 27aug2007}{...}
{cmd:help alt-path}
{hline}

{title:Title}

{p 4 18 2}{cmd:Alternative file or directory path}

{title:Description}

{pstd}An {bf:alt-path} is a somewhat more flexible version of a standard file- or directory- path, used in most of the relevant site commands. It does not require quotes, even if it includes spaces, and it allows the standard wildcard characters:

{pstd}{cmd:*} for any string of 0 or more characters{break}
{cmd:?} for any single character

{pstd}Enough information must be included in each segment to resolve unambigously to a single, existing, element. Any part of the {bf:alt-path} that could refer to more than one file/directory will cause an error.

{pstd}For example, if there were only one file in the current directory that began with {cmd:f}, the {bf:alt-path} {cmd:f*} would correctly refer to that file.
If there were more than one file that started with {cmd:f}, an error message listing the possible choices would result.

{pstd}As another example, the file {cmd:top/next/third/thefile.dta} could be referred to with {cmd:t*/n*/th*/t*} - assuming that the abbreviations at each level could be resolved without ambiguity. 

{pstd}One thing to watch out for: Stata interprets {cmd:/*} as the beginning of a comment, so it will not recognize it as part of an {bf:alt-path}. The simplest solution (on a windows machine) is to use {cmd:\*} instead.