Re: st: excel to stata / variable names shift to the value row

[Ernest Berkhout <Ernest.Berkhout@seo.nl>]

At 11:51 28/02/2005, Ron�n Conroy wrote:

> You can force -insheet- to read the first line of the incoming file as 
> names, using the -names- option. I cannot figure out why, on some 
> occasions, Stata treats the first row as data, but let's face it, it does 
> a pretty good job at guessing whether there are names there or not. Safest 
> thing is to give the -names- option explicitly unless you can vouch for 
> Stata's behaviour in advance.
It happens mostly to me when the first column is a string variable. If the 
first row in a column is a string, it can be (A) a variable name OR (B) the 
first value of a string variable. If the second row is a string as well, 
then option (B) might probably be the most plausible for Stata.
When the first variable is not a stringvariable i never encounter the 
problem mentioned...





Ernest Berkhout
SEO Amsterdam Economics
University of Amsterdam
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