#<hansl

function string get_rnames(matrix M)

   string s = sprintf("%d",M)

   nss = nlines(s)

   string line

   scalar i = 1

   strings S = array(nss)

   loop while getline(s, line) -q

       S[i]= sprintf("%s",  line)

       i++

   endloop

   ret = ""

   if nelem(strsplit(S[1])) == 2

       loop i = 1..nss -q

           ret = ret~" "~strsplit(S[i])[1]

       endloop

       ret = strstrip(ret)

   endif

   return ret

end function

# example

M = I(2)

M[1,1] = NA

rownames(M, "a b")

eval get_rnames(M)

#hansl>

? eval get_rnames(M)

a b