Re: st: Fwd: format of data file: Stata 10, Stata 9

["Friedrich Huebler" <fhuebler@gmail.com>]

Thank you, Kit. With your code I discovered the extended missing
values that can be used to identify files saved from Stata 4 to Stata
10:

Stata 10: .m
Stata 8, 9: .l
Stata 7: .i
Stata 6: .g
Stata 4, 5: .d

Friedrich

> > From: Kit Baum <baum@bc.edu>
> > Date: June 28, 2007 7:53:54 AM EDT
> > To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
> > Subject: re: format of data file: Stata 10, Stata 9
> >
> > Friedrich said
> >
> > Is there a command similar to -describe- that identifies the format of
> > a data file (Stata 10, Stata 9, etc.)?
> >
> > I looked through the documentation - including [P] file formats .dta,
> > [P] version, [U] 16.1.1 Version, [U] 18.11.1 Version, and the help
> > file - but found no such command.
> >
> >
> > This will do it. You're looking for version 114 for Stata 10,
> > version 113 for Stata 8-9, etc. Those numbers map into various
> > missing data codes in Stata's handling of bytes.
> >
> >
> > tempname h
> > di "filespec :" _request(_fn)
> > file open `h' using `fn', read binary
> > tempname val
> > file read `h' %1b `val'
> > scalar ten = .m
> > scalar eightnine = .l
> > local stataver=cond(`val'==ten,"10",cond
> > (`val'==eightnine,"8-9","<=7"))
> > di _n "Stata version of `fn' is `stataver'"
> > file close `h'
> >
> > It actually works--I looked at a 1998-vintage .dta file and it
> > correctly indicated that it was v7 or earlier. Perhaps someone at
> > StataCorp (or Steve Dubnoff @ circlesys) could provide the numbers
> > for the various earlier versions of the dataset format?
> >
> > Kit Baum, Boston College Economics and DIW Berlin
> > 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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