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From | Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com> |
To | statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu |
Subject | Re: st: New package -use10save9- available on SSC |
Date | Mon, 31 Oct 2011 09:15:43 +0000 |
This program raises questions similar to, but not identical to, those raised by -save9- (SSC). See earlier postings by Joerg Luedicke http://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/2011-04/msg00654.html http://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/2011-10/msg00928.html and myself http://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/2011-10/msg01158.html http://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/2011-10/msg01253.html Marco Ercolani's replies are included in these postings. (He is the author of -save9-.) First, -use10save9- is I gather essentially for users of version 9, as if you have Stata 10 up you don't seem to need it (except for its support for multiple files). That is clearly a class of users who might seek some help in reading .dta files that otherwise are unreadable. However, if you have version 9, then inbuilt -save- will automatically save to version 9 format. So, the use of -save9- within -use10save9- appears superfluous. Second, -use10- (SSC) itself claims only that it can read Stata 10 .dta files in Stata 9, whereas the claim made on its behalf here is that you can read Stata 10+ files. This seems all too likely to be misunderstood by some users, as Stata 10+ surely includes Stata 12. Third, you can go beyond what official Stata provides if you write extra code that makes use of StataCorp's published specification of .dta format. -use10- does do this among the three programs mentioned but otherwise I don't see that the programs can do anything radically different from what -save- and -saveold- do in any particular version of Stata. The underlying principles are very simple. Everyone benefits from being totally precise about what programs can and, by extension, cannot do. Similarly, superfluous programs do no harm, except that they can confuse. Those are the principles. In practice -use10save9- does offer functionality for working with several .dta files at once, but otherwise I am unclear about its precise rationale. Perhaps others too would appreciate some clarification here, or correction of what I am not understanding. Nick Nick On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 10:29 PM, Lars Ängquist <lars.angquist@telia.com> wrote: > Dear Statalist. > > Many thanks to Kit Baum who recently (2011-10-29) made the -use10save9- > package available for download from SSC. In Stata, use the -ssc- command to > do this directly, or go somewhat more indirectly through usage of > the -findit- command. > > --- --- --- > > Brief abstract: > > use10save9 - is a program that helps out with opening Stata 10+ files from > within Stata 9 and then saving them in Stata 9 format using the user-written > -use10- (Radyakin, 2008) and -save9- (Ercolani, 2011) functions. May be > applied to a quite generally defined/matched set of Stata datasets within a > defined folder and, if selected, also with respect to all corresponding > subfolders. The simplest syntax is purely based on defaults. All options are > optional. > An alternative, secondary, usage might be to simply use the function as an > extension to -save9- in order to save matched sets of datasets in Stata 9 > format while being in Stata 10+. * * 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/