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| From | Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com> |
| To | statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu |
| Subject | Re: st: Re: insheet multi threading |
| Date | Mon, 2 May 2011 17:46:33 +0100 |
I agree with Maarten to the extent that I don't think Argyn's case is helped by wild exaggerations. In fact, I had exactly the same thought as Maarten, that Argyn's assertion is refutable, a virtue naturally, but quite wrong. On the main issue, my short answer is that I don't know. A longer answer is that -insheet- depends on parts of a datafile having the same structure as the whole. So, very likely -- if this is parallelisable -- much of the code would require lots of compatibility checks to ensure consistency of input. My guess is that -insheet- peeks at the top of the data file, makes a guess at its structure, and then keeps on going unless and until it finds a problem. By the way, the presumption appears to be that you need Stata to produce a Stata .dta file, which is not correct either. Nick On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 4:16 PM, Schaffer, Mark E <M.E.Schaffer@hw.ac.uk> wrote: > Well ... I took Argyn's statement to be a bit of poetic licence. The unpoetic way of asking the question is: -insheet- and -infile- are commonly used commands (at least judging by how often they show up on Statalist in one way or another); can they be parallelised? Seems like a reasonable and Statalist-worthy question. > > --Mark > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu >> [mailto:owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] On Behalf Of >> Maarten buis >> Sent: 02 May 2011 16:06 >> To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu >> Subject: Re: st: Re: insheet multi threading >> >> --- Argyn Kuketayev wrote: >> > I'm sure everyone does it daily: read CSV files. >> >> This is statement that is very easy to falsify: it only needs >> one Stata user who does not do it daily. I am such a Stata >> user: I use Stata often and I have been doing so for some >> time, and over the last 8 years or so that I have used Stata >> I can remember only three or four instances that I have read >> a CSV file. >> >> I am not trying to be mean --- well, actually I am, but that >> is not the point --- the point is that we often tend to >> generalize our experience to the rest of the world. >> Even in the very homogenous group of Stata users or the even >> more homogenous group of statalist subscribers, that is >> usually not the case. People use Stata in surprisingly >> different ways, so what is very important to you can easily >> be completely irrelevant to others. So I would be very >> careful when making such statements and check with different >> people from different disciplines and industries before >> making such claims. >> The easier alternative is to just not make such statements. >> >> -- Maarten >> >> >> -------------------------- >> Maarten L. Buis >> Institut fuer Soziologie >> Universitaet Tuebingen >> Wilhelmstrasse 36 >> 72074 Tuebingen >> Germany >> >> >> http://www.maartenbuis.nl >> -------------------------- >> >> * >> * For searches and help try: >> * http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search >> * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq >> * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/ >> > > > -- > Heriot-Watt University is a Scottish charity > registered under charity number SC000278. > > > * > * For searches and help try: > * http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search > * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq > * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/ > * * For searches and help try: * http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/