st: Reading data with infix: record too long

["b.tracy" <bst73@yahoo.com>]

(Using Stata 9)

While trying to infix a dataset, I received the 'record too long' error, and I subsequently read the thread "Re: st: reading data with infix: record too long."

I have checked my data with -hexdump, analyze- but I do not know what solutions are available to me after doing so. I have a number of state-level datasets which give different results when using -hexdump-. In the first case below, no data is read; in the second case, only 109 lines are read before the error appears.

What are my options, if any, to get this data into Stata?

Regards,
Brandon.

. hexdump "pme2001pe.dat" ,analyze

  Line-end characters                        Line length (tab=1)
    \r\n         (DOS)                  0      minimum               19,542,038
    \r by itself (Mac)                  0      maximum               19,542,038
    \n by itself (Unix)                 0
  Space/separator characters                 Number of lines                  1
    [blank]                             0      EOL at EOF?                   no
    [tab]                               0
    [comma] (,)                         0    Length of first 5 lines
  Control characters                           Line 1                19,542,038
    binary 0                   19,542,038      Line 2                         .
    CTL excl. \r, \n, \t                0      Line 3                         .
    DEL                                 0      Line 4                         .
    Extended (128-159,255)              0      Line 5                         .
  ASCII printable
    A-Z                                 0
    a-z                                 0    File format                 BINARY
    0-9                                 0
    Special (!@#$ etc.)                 0
    Extended (160-254)                  0
                          ---------------
  Total                        19,542,038

  Observed were:
     \0

. hexdump "pme2001sp.dat" ,analyze

  Line-end characters                        Line length (tab=1)
    \r\n         (DOS)                109      minimum                       41
    \r by itself (Mac)                  0      maximum               28,329,218
    \n by itself (Unix)                 0
  Space/separator characters                 Number of lines                110
    [blank]                        18,975      EOL at EOF?                   no
    [tab]                               0
    [comma] (,)                         0    Length of first 5 lines
  Control characters                           Line 1                       481
    binary 0                   28,329,188      Line 2                        41
    CTL excl. \r, \n, \t                0      Line 3                       811
    DEL                                 0      Line 4                       261
    Extended (128-159,255)              0      Line 5                       371
  ASCII printable
    A-Z                                 0
    a-z                                 0    File format                 BINARY
    0-9                            13,575
    Special (!@#$ etc.)                 0
    Extended (160-254)                  0
                          ---------------
  Total                        28,361,956

  Observed were:
     \0 \n \r blank 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
 




      
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