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From | Julian Emmler <ju.emmler@googlemail.com> |
To | statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu |
Subject | Re: st: RE: SPSS to Stata - Variable with 14 digits not transformed correctly |
Date | Fri, 2 Mar 2012 17:27:05 +0100 |
Thanks for the response Nick, that's what I expected. Does anyone know a procedure to transfer the data to Stata correctly? 2012/3/2 Nick Cox <n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk>: > In this context values like 1.001e+13 are to be thought of as, strictly, sets of values which are all displayed in the same way with a particular format. Crucially, changing the display format does nothing to change what is stored; by definition, it only changes how that is displayed. > > 14-digit identifiers can only be held accurately in Stata as string variables or -double- variables. If your identifier variable is -float- instead, then you will have lost precision in importing to Stata and the only way to regain that precision is to read the data in again. Recasting from -float- to -double- does nothing useful as the extra details have been lost already. > > -usespss- is user-written (SSC). Its author is intermittently active on Statalist. I've never used it but I see no way in its help to change how particular variables are imported. I guess that you need some other solution. As I don't use SPSS or SPSS files at all I can only guess that you need to look at export options in SPSS and import options in Stata and find a match. Others on this list who do use SPSS should be able to add better advice. > > In short, this problem as you describe it cannot be fixed in Stata. You must import again. > > Nick > n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk > > Julian Emmler > > I'm new to this forum so I don't know yet the most accurate way to post my > question but I hope it will be understandable and I would be greatful for > every question for clarification. My Problem with Stata is concerned with > transforming household data for the South African labour market which is > only available in SPSS format to Stata. I did this with several datasets > also for the South African labour market and used the "usespss" command in > Stata which worked just fine. However with the last dataset I encountered a > problem: > In the dataset, to identify a household, a 14 digit number called the > Unique Household Identifier is used. However, if I transform the data > from SPSS to Stata, the values of the Household identifier are not it's > real values any more but are shortened e.g. to 1.001e+13. Thus the Unique > household identifier is not unique anymore. I try several things, e.g. > transformin the vaiable to a double variable and increasing the number of > digits displayed. This helps in that regard, that the number is now > displayed correctly in the data browser, however the value didn't change. > After searching the internet, I've come to the conclusion that this probelm > has something to do with the length of the variable, i.e. that 14 digits is > too long to be handled by Stata. Another indicator for this is that with > earlier datasets I had no problem because the Unique Household Identifier > was 12 digits long. I wanted to ask now if you know any way to > transfer the SPSS data to Stata correctly or a way to manipulate the > data afterwards so i attains its true values. > > * > * 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/