Re: st: -infile using- variables in rows?

[n j cox <n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk>]

I don't know why you expect _row() to work, except that it would be nice 
if it did. It is not supported syntax.

I appreciate that this is an awkward data structure for your purpose. 
That does not mean that it is an awkward data structure for every purpose.

I would try -insheet- followed by -reshape-. I can't see that specifying
a dictionary is going to help you here.

Nick
n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk

David Clinton Musselwhite

I'm trying to read in a massive amount of files that are dirty in Excel
format and don't come out clearly using StatTransfer. I think the best way
to approach them is -infile using-, as they're of fixed format and I can
specify what to do with them. The only problem is that the variables are
rows, not columns. I tried writing a dictionary using _row(#) instead of
_column(#), but I keep getting errors (see below) and am wondering why
this is invalid. And if so, what on earth can I do to automate the read-in
process, as cleaning up each Excel file by hand would take prohibitively
long?

--snip from data set--
                  0-10 employees     10-24 employees     25-99 employees
varlabel1  description1  #                  #                   #
varlabel2  description2  #                  #                   #
--end snip--

--attempted dictionary--
dictionary using
"U:\User10\kis6\Datasets\MEPSIC\MEPSICdata\Alabama1996_II.csv" {
_row(6)
( invalid name
dictionary invalid
r(614);
--end attempted dictionary--

There are 58 row variables and 7 column cases (each of which is separated
by a column...I don't know who designed this format, but I'd like to
introduce them to usability).


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