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st: RE: data management question
From
Nick Cox <[email protected]>
To
"'[email protected]'" <[email protected]>
Subject
st: RE: data management question
Date
Fri, 15 Oct 2010 17:48:56 +0100
If this were my problem, I would certainly start off thinking about -file-. I might include an -outsheet- to send the data to a temporary file and then also read them in using -file-. As you say, -filefilter- also seems natural.
Much depends on whether this is an absolutely fixed design imposed on you.
Nick
[email protected]
Airey, David C
I need to automate the creation of many tab delimited text (ascii) files.
The structure is:
# comments
# comments
# comments
# comments
@format=column var1 se n var2 se n var3 se n
1 10 2 8 50 5 8 x x x
2 11 1.9 8 50 5 8 30 3 8
3 12 1.7 8 50 5 8 30 3 8
4 13 2 8 50 5 8 30 3 8
5 18 2.1 8 50 5 8 30 3 8
etc
Problems with this file format are use of "x" for missing, column naming
conventions not compatible with Stata (@ symbol, repeated column names),
use of # for header comments.
-Outfile- or -outsheet- can export the data from underneath
the @ line just fine, and maybe -filefilter- can change the missing data to "x" as
needed. Should -file- be somehow used to create the file up to the @ line and then
-outsheet- below and then somehow join the two?
How do others handle the creation of data files that have nonstandard header text?
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