Richard Williams ([email protected]) started a discussion
about the possibility of a final update to Stata 9 which would give
it the ability to read Stata 10 datasets:
> Congratulations on the new release. Somebody suggested once that it
> would be nice if the last version of an old Stata included the
> ability to read files from the new version. I think that would be a
> very nice feature, as it takes a while to get everyone converted to
> the latest version.
Nick Cox ([email protected]) responded with some reasons that
we might not do that, and also surmised that there may not be any
more updates to Stata 9.
We will in fact put out a final update to Stata 9, likely shortly
after Stata 10 ships. However, this update will not include the
ability to read Stata 10 files. As Nick pointed out, our solution
for users who need to share datasets across versions is the -saveold-
command.
In another email, Richard wondered if, since -saveold- already exists,
we have worked out all issues concerning the difference in the dataset
formats and therefore could easily add the ability to read Stata 10
datasets in Stata 9. It is much easier for us to export an old-format
dataset once a new-format dataset is already in memory with all the
appropriate structures and code necessary to deal with it than it is
to try to handle a new format with old code. This is why we have
a -saveold- command in Stata 10 rather than a -usenew- command in
Stata 9.
--Alan
([email protected])
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