Re: st: How to re-program -save9- for Stata 13?

[Stas Kolenikov <skolenik@gmail.com>]

Nick, it's a matter of habit, for the most part, I believe. It has
traditionally been used by social scientists who collect their data,
as it seems to have some sort of a data collection toolkit (which I
have never used). People like the GUI... and you have even save the
syntax from your point and click operations for later use! So that's
as far as the strengths go. Some of the tabulations can be adjusted
for a prettier output more conveniently than in Stata, though.

Your question sounds a lot like "what drives people to use Stata if
they also have access to R?" that we both have heard a lot on
StackOverflow ;). So that's a disciplinary divide. A machine learning
blogger would insert a snippet of R code into their post to clarify
what they want to say without much thinking whether a different
software may exist. An economist would insert a snippet of Stata code,
as that is the language economists think in. Along these lines, public
opinion researchers think in terms of SPSS syntax.

-- Stas Kolenikov, PhD, PStat (ASA, SSC)
-- Senior Survey Statistician, Abt SRBI
-- Opinions stated in this email are mine only, and do not reflect the
position of my employer
-- http://stas.kolenikov.name



On Tue, Oct 15, 2013 at 10:19 AM, Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com> wrote:
> Not to knock SPSS, although for many that qualifies as an acceptable
> sport, but what drives people to use SPSS if they also have access to
> Stata?
>
> I am not trying to be ironic here. It is (literally) decades, i.e.
> sometime last century I think, since I last used SPSS, so I am quite
> out of touch on its relative strengths.
>
> Please take as understood that some users prefer its user interface.
>
>
>
> Nick
> njcoxstata@gmail.com
>
>
> On 15 October 2013 16:05, Sergiy Radyakin <serjradyakin@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Stas,
>>
>> Stata 8 and 9 share the same data format (specification 113), so
>> although SPSS says it writes in 5-8, it should equally read and write
>> 9 (perhaps the menu text was designed at the time Stata 9 did not
>> exist yet). Here is another reference it supports 9:
>> http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/mult_pkg/faq/fromStata_toSPSS.htm
>>
>> But introduction of reading Stata dataset capability was apparently
>> added in version 14 (contrary to the above reference):
>> http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/spssstat/v20r0m0/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.spss.statistics.help%2Fwhatsnew_14.0.htm
>>
>> Furthermore, it seems the request for support of newer Stata formats
>> was requested still in the 17th generation of SPSS:
>> http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21477575
>>
>> Best, Sergiy Radyakin
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 15, 2013 at 9:41 AM, Stas Kolenikov <skolenik@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Sergiy,
>>>
>>> regarding 2), I have access at work to SPSS 21 that seems to work with
>>> Stata 8 files (at least their internal "Save As" gives options from
>>> Stata 5 through Stata 8). From Stata 12 that I have at work, the
>>> -save-d files (under version 12) cannot be read by SPSS, but -saveold-
>>> produces the version-8-compatible data set that SPSS can work with.
>>>
>>> -- Stas Kolenikov, PhD, PStat (ASA, SSC)
>>> -- Senior Survey Statistician, Abt SRBI
>>> -- Opinions stated in this email are mine only, and do not reflect the
>>> position of my employer
>>> -- http://stas.kolenikov.name
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Oct 15, 2013 at 7:46 AM, Sergiy Radyakin <serjradyakin@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Hello Marco,
>>>>
>>>> could you please explain a bit, why you see a need for such a program?
>>>> If you have Stata 13, this means you can use -saveold- to save in the
>>>> previous version, then following this FAQ all the way until version 5
>>>> if necessary:
>>>> http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/data-management/save-for-previous-version/
>>>>
>>>> If you don't have Stata 13, then you use -use13- to load the data into
>>>> Stata 10 or later.
>>>> http://radyakin.org/transfer/use13/use13.htm
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> So I see potential clients as:
>>>> 1) people having Stata 9 and no access to newer versions;
>>>> 2) people having non-Stata software that can read dta format of 9, but
>>>> not newer and the software is not going to be updated, and there is no
>>>> access to Stata 10+
>>>>
>>>> Regarding 1) I was told the # is pretty small, but I don't know what
>>>> 'small' really is. Regarding 2) I am interested in what is out there
>>>> (regardless whether maintained or not). Can we have a headcount of the
>>>> programs that directly read Stata datasets? Let me start:
>>>> ADePT v.5.50.5001.23617 (supports data from Stata 8 to 13)
>>>> ADePT Map v2 (supports data from Stata 8-11)
>>>> R (with package foreign) (supports data from Stata 5 to 12)
>>>> SPSS v.15+ (supports data from Stata X?X to 9?)
>>>> Stat/Transfer (supports data from any version of Stata)
>>>> etc.
>>>>
>>>> Regarding the implementation it is not at all difficult: the current
>>>> code of use13 and use10 contains all the necessary procedures to
>>>> implement save9 which I can do if there is any significant demand.
>>>>
>>>> Best, Sergiy Radyakin
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Oct 14, 2013 at 8:54 AM, Marco Ercolani <m.g.ercolani@bham.ac.uk> wrote:
>>>>> Dear Statalisters,
>>>>>
>>>>> I am asking for suggestions on how I can re-program -save9- so that it will work in Stata 13.
>>>>> In other words, so it will save data in a Stata 9 format from within Stata 13.
>>>>> I can think of two possible strategies to achieve this within Stata 13:
>>>>>
>>>>> Strategy 1: Edit the contents of the dataset so they conform to Stata 9 protocols, save the file,
>>>>> then edit the the file header so that it appears to have been saved by Stata 9.
>>>>>
>>>>> Strategy 2: Use an existing save facility in Stata 13 that would allow me to impose limits on the
>>>>> data so it respects Stata 9 protocols. Does such a save facility exist?
>>>>>
>>>>> Any help on the above two approaches or helpful suggestions for a "third way" would be welcome.
>>>>>
>>>>>  Marco Ercolani
>>>>>  Department of Economics
>>>>>  University of Birmingham
>>>>>
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