My problem has been solved. Steve, Joseph and Scott, thank you for the
suggested solutions. Some of them worked, some did not because I
omitted a crucial detail in my initial post. The example files were
oversimplified. The actual files I have to import contain nine string
variables of varying length up to 150 characters and the variables can
contain blanks.
(1) Stat/Transfer:
Stat/Transfer can convert the files to Stata format, even without
changing "ASCII File Read Options/String Quote Character" to a blank.
(2) -infile-:
-infile- fails because it splits individual strings every time it
encounters a blank. -infile- can also not be used with a dictionary
because the variables in my data are not arranged in a fixed format.
(3) -file-:
-file- fails because each line from the tab-delimited text files is
imported as a single string. The maximum length of 244 characters is
too short to accommodate my data.
(4) -filefilter-:
This solution works. -filefilter- can replace the double quotes by a
character not present in the original data, for example curved quotes,
that can be changed back to the original straight quotes in Stata.
Many thanks,
Friedrich
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