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RE: st: retaining numeric formatting when using -outsheet-
From
"Beede, David N" <[email protected]>
To
"[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Subject
RE: st: retaining numeric formatting when using -outsheet-
Date
Thu, 23 Dec 2010 10:54:56 -0500
Thank you, Sergiy -
That is a good point about the commas! But still, following your 2nd suggestion to -outsheet- the file using tab delimiters, but the results were the same.
v1 v2
21 27649503232
0 0
48 213393129472
18 185502416896
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sergiy Radyakin
Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2010 10:44 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: st: retaining numeric formatting when using -outsheet-
Dear David,
1) if you plan using CSV format, perhaps it is not a good idea to
format numbers with
commas like so: 213,393,129,472 since Excel will read this as 4
different values in
one row. Since you report that Excel shows this as one number, I
conclude that the
file outputted from Stata does not contain the comma separators
between the triplets.
2) If the file contains commas between triplets but the values are
separated with TABs,
Excel (2007) reads the numbers correctly, recognizes the triplets
separator / number
format etc. So it seems you need to pursuade Stata to output
everything in correct
format (preserve triplets separator in the outsheet output, which it discards).
3) unless there is something undocumented about outsheet, there
appears to be two
options:
A) write your own outsheet, which supports this feature;
B) post-process outsheet's output, either before or after importing to Excel.
Best, Sergiy Radyakin
On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 10:32 AM, Beede, David N <[email protected]> wrote:
> Thank you, Neil. I did as you suggested, and the numbers are not in the desired format:
> v1,v2
> 21,27649503232
> 0,0
> 48,213393129472
> 18,185502416896
> So I don't know if this means I am doing something wrong in Stata. I agree I could format in Excel, but I am trying (perhaps too hard!) to automate the process as much as possible.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Neil Shephard
> Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2010 10:25 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: st: retaining numeric formatting when using -outsheet-
>
> On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 3:16 PM, Beede, David N <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Hi -
>>
>> I know this topic has come up before, and the answer was to set the display format within Stata. But even so, I am having problems with it. I have done a lot of due diligence to try to find the answer but can't (I also tried using StatTransfer and -xmlsave- without success). I want to avoid as much format-fussing in Excel as I can, but if I have to I guess I will. But if anyone has a quick fix, I would be grateful to know it. Thanks.
>>
>> Here is a snippet of code:
>> recast double v*
>> format v* %20.0fc
>> format *
>> l v1 v2
>> outsheet v1 v2 using test.csv, replace comma
>>
>> Here is an excerpt from the Stata log corresponding to the snippet:
>> variable name display format
>> -----------------------------
>> v1 %20.0fc
>> v2 %20.0fc
>> -----------------------------
>>
>> +----------------------+
>> | v1 v2 |
>> |----------------------|
>> 1. | 21 27,649,503,232 |
>> 2. | 0 0 |
>> 3. | 48 213,393,129,472 |
>> 4. | 18 185,502,416,896 |
>> +----------------------+
>> And here is what the Excel file looks like after using -outsheet-
>> v1 v2
>> 21 27649503232
>> 0 0
>> 48 2.13393E+11
>> 18 1.85502E+11
>
> This sounds more like an Excel issue.
>
> To investigate open the CSV in a text-editor (NOT Excel or Word) and
> look at the format of your strings.
>
> My guess is that they will look as desired, which means its Excel that
> is choosing to display "213,393,129,472" as "2.13393E+11" and so
> forth. I don't have a version of Excel with which to check this
> (since I exclusively run Linux) but there are ways of formatting
> columns in Excel (something like right-clicking the column and
> selecting "Format cells" or similar) that should allow you to set the
> display format as desired before then saving it as an Excel file (i.e.
> with extensions .xls so that formatting will be retained).
>
> Neil
>
> --
> "Our civilization would be pitifully immature without the intellectual
> revolution led by Darwin" - Motoo Kimura, The Neutral Theory of
> Molecular Evolution
>
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>
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