Mark Orr wrote (excerpted):
> I think that Stata loads the dataset into memory in order to allow certain
> efficiencies (e.g., vectorized operations) that wouldn't be possible
> otherwise--i.e., operating on the dataset file one observation at a time.
NO, R CAN DO THIS.
> I'm curious: does *any* data-management/statistical analysis software
> package load more than one entire dataset in memory at one time? Maybe
> Raphael meant: to have more than one dataset file open for manipulation
> at
> a time, such as what SAS does or perhaps what relational database
> management
> systems do. And, for that matter, you can emulate the same from within
> Stata, using the -odbc- suite of commands and SQL. Unlike SAS, you
> cannot,
> however, analogously invoke SQL statements on native Stata dataset files.
> But, as Michael mentioned, it's not certain that you would frequently need
> to, given Stata's repertoire of data-management commands.
R, S-PLUS MAKE THIS MUCH SIMPLER. OF COURSE, I PREFER STATA FOR SOME
WORK, R FOR OTHER WORK. BOTH HAVE UNIQUE STRENGTHS.
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I'm afraid that you lost me as to the meaning of your comments.
I thought that R and S-Plus also load one dataset completely into memory,
just as does Stata, so I'm not sure what you mean by, "No, R can do this."
Also, I'm not sure what you mean by, "R, S-Plus make this much simpler."
What is it in the paragraph above that they make much simpler? Use of ODBC
application interfaces?
Joseph Coveney
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