st: xml_tab

[Kit Baum <baum@bc.edu>]

Amadou suggested that "xml_tab" in some way supersedes estout,  
outreg2, outreg, etc. I sincerely doubt that assertion. Programs such  
as outreg2 and estout, which I mentioned in my posting of SSC  
activity, handle estimation results, tables of descriptive  
statistics, and the like in a variety of formats, including HTML, tab- 
delimited text, and LaTeX. Ian Watson's -tabout- is another highly  
useful routine in this genre IMHO.

The description of "xml_tab" on

http://econ.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTRESEARCH/ 
EXTPROGRAMS/EXTPOVRES/0,,contentMDK:20292195~menuPK:546578~pagePK: 
64168182~piPK:64168060~theSitePK:477894,00.html

states that "XML_TAB is a program that saves the outputs from Stata  
estimation procedures in Microsoft Excel."

This might be useful to some people, but many (including me) make no  
use of MS Excel in their scholarly or research work. estout, outreg2  
and a number of other user-written procedures have options for tab- 
delimited output, which makes their output readable by MS Word or MS  
Excel for those that might want to use it.

I would speak more authoritatively about xml_tab, but for the fact  
that clicking on the web page above to get its help file yields

"Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at  
siteresources.worldbank.org."

And within Stata, a "net from" command fails:

. net from http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPOVRES/Resources/
remote connection failed -- see help r(677) for troubleshooting
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPOVRES/Resources/ either
  1)  is not a valid URL, or
  2)  could not be contacted, or
  3)  is not a Stata download site (has no stata.toc file).
r(677);

The explicit command given on the web page above, indicating how to  
install xml_tab from their site, doesn't work either (generating the  
same error 677).

So I am not sure that the site is usable in its present form for  
those outside the World Bank. I can 'net from' a number of other  
sites without difficulty, so I imagine the problem is with the World  
Bank's firewall; like the IMF, they are (justifiably) security- 
conscious.

And 'findit xml_tab' doesn't...

Kit Baum, Boston College Economics
http://ideas.repec.org/e/pba1.html
An Introduction to Modern Econometrics Using Stata:
http://www.stata-press.com/books/imeus.html


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