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Re: Re: st: .dta storage, why is too big?
From
"Clyde Schechter" <[email protected]>
To
[email protected]
Subject
Re: Re: st: .dta storage, why is too big?
Date
Wed, 8 Jun 2011 12:19:34 -0700
Clarification to my earlier post (below)
Stata's specifications for the .dta format includes some "overhead" that
describes the contents of the file. So, of course, one could create a toy
data set that has 1 observation on 1 byte variable, and it would be larger
as .dta than as .txt.
What I meant to say is that I have never seen a real-world data set where
the .dta is larger than the .txt version.
Clyde Schechter
On Tue, 7 Jun 2011, Daniel Marcelino wrote:
> Hello for all,
>
> today I came across my old and new files size, R and Stata storage
respectively. This got me thinking about why Stata compression is too
inefficient compared to R? Even thought I use variable attributes like
labels R compression is incredible. For example, 530 mb of Stata file
turns into 9 mb R file and about 330 mb as txt file. So, my point is:
do you know any trick to compress Stata files addition to command line
"compress".
and Daniel Feenberg replied that Stata doesn't do any "Shannonesque
compression."
That is true, but I really wonder if there isn't something wrong with
Daniel Marcelino's Stata installation, or something very odd about the
file that provoked his post. I have been using Stata since version 4 and
I have _never_ in all those years encountered a data set that was larger
as .dta than as a text file. The .dta version may not be much smaller
than the text version, but, I have never seen it be larger.
Clyde Schechter
Associate Professor of Family & Social Medicine
Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA
Please note new e-mail address: [email protected]
Clyde Schechter, MA MD
Associate Professor of Family & Social Medicine
Please note new e-mail address: [email protected]
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