st: how does insheet determine datatypes?

[Phil Schumm <pschumm@uchicago.edu>]

Does anyone know how -insheet- determines datatypes -- specifically,  
how it distinguishes between numeric and string?  If I read a large  
file and a column that is otherwise strictly numeric has a non- 
numeric value toward the end, can I rely on Stata to retain that  
observation and set the column to string (as opposed to setting the  
non-numeric value to missing)?  Or, can I at least rely on Stata to  
throw a "cannot be read as number" error that I can catch?

I've looked through the manual, FAQs, and list archives, but I can't  
seem to find the answer (the closest I came was http://www.stata.com/ 
statalist/archive/2002-06/msg00012.html, but that doesn't answer my  
question).

Thanks,


-- Phil

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