Statapackagesearch
Packagesearch: module to scan Stata .do files and identify SSC packages used by the code
Installation
To install, type the following command into Stata.
net install packagesearch, from("https://labordynamicsinstitute.github.io/Statapackagesearch/")
To install a specific release instead, put its tag (listed under Releases) into the URL. For example, for v1.1.3:
net install packagesearch, replace from("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/labordynamicsinstitute/Statapackagesearch/v1.1.3/")
Releases from v1.1.2 on are tagged vX.Y.Z. Older releases have no v in their tags: 1.1.0, 1.0.20 and 1.0.16. replace overwrites whatever version is currently installed.
which packagesearch shows the installed version.
Syntax: (also available in the help file)
help packagesearch (SJX-X: dmXXXX)
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Title
packagesearch -- Module to search Stata code for the SSC packages used by
the code
Description
packagesearch provides a tool that scans, parses, and matches all Stata
.do files in a directory (and its subdirectories) against a list of all
packages currently hosted at SSC. It outputs a list of candidate SSC
packages that were (likely) used when code is run.
Syntax
packagesearch , codedir(directorytoscan)[ details domain(domain) filesave
excelsave nodropfalsepos installfounds]
Options
codedir(directorytoscan) is required. It specifies the directory that
contains the .do files to be scanned for SSC packages.
details will preserve the list of keywords that triggered the package match.
By default, only the count of such keywords is output.
domain(domain) optionally specifies a domain from which to take
statistics to help identify likely packages (by default, ssc hot is
used). Only available domain right now is econ.
filesave outputs a list of all files that were parsed during the scanning
process.
excelsave saves the results of the scan into an Excel spreadsheet titled
candidatepackages.xlsx. This file is saved in the specified
directorytoscan and will include a list of parsed programs if
filesave is also indicated as an option.
nodropfalsepos By default, command removes packages that were frequently
found to be false positives during beta testing. This flag disables
that feature. Presently this includes the following packages: white,
missing, index, dash, title, cluster, pre, bys
installfounds installs all SSC packages found during the scanning process
into the current working directory.
Description:
The code begins by either collecting a list of all packages hosted at SSC using the whatshot command, or pulling a list of common SSC packages used in economics research (if option domain(econ) is specified).
Next, it identifies all .do files in the specified codedir directory and subdirectories, then parses each .do file into individual words using the txttool command.
Finally, it matches the individual words against the list of common Stata packages and outputs a list of candidate packages that were (likely) used when the Stata code was run.
Testing
The Github repository has a few files to test the package. To run, you can do the following:
GITURL=https://github.com/labordynamicsinstitute/Statapackagesearch/
git clone $GITURL
cd Statapackagesearch
and then, if you have Stata installed,
./test/run.sh
and if you don’t, but have access to a Stata license (e.g. on Github Codespaces with the proper setup)
echo "$STATA_LIC_BASE64" | base64 -d > stata.lic
docker run -it --rm \
-v $(pwd)/stata.lic:/usr/local/stata/stata.lic \
-v $(pwd):/project \
-w /project \
--entrypoint /bin/bash dataeditors/stata19_5-mp:2026-08-12 \
./test/run.sh
./test/install_check.sh, run the same way (it needs network access), checks that the package installs from a release archive of the current commit and from every install URL given above.
Contributing and releases
The version number lives in VERSION and is stamped into the .ado, .sthlp, .pkg, stata.toc and CITATION.cff files by the release workflow. Do not edit version numbers by hand; state in your pull request whether the change warrants a major, minor or patch release. The rules are in AGENTS.md, and the release process is in docs/RELEASING.md.
Questions?
Contact:
Lydia Reiner (lr397@cornell.edu)
Lars Vilhuber (lars.vilhuber@cornell.edu)