Re: st: Re: openning an SPSS file

[Garry Anderson <g.anderson@unimelb.edu.au>]

Hi,

There is a potential trap with the approach of 'saving as' a tab delimited 
file in SPSS and importing into Stata using 'insheet using filename'

If there is a missing value (no entry of a number) in any of the 
observations for a numeric variable in SPSS, SPSS outputs a space character 
in the saved tab-delimited file. When the file is read by Stata via 
'insheet using filename', the space character converts the numeric variable 
into a string variable and doing the  -summ var- command in Stata says that 
there are zero observations for this variable. This is because it is a 
string variable. I think that there is no need for SPSS to output a space 
character, but that is the way it is. Deleting the space character(s) in 
the tab-delimited file resolves the problem, but it is only a workaround. 
This occurs with Stata7 and Stata8.

Anothe workaround in Stata is to use
-destring, replace-

Regards, Garry
g.anderson@unimelb.edu.au


At 07:42 PM 15/10/2003 +0100, you wrote:

> At 10:33 15/10/03 -0700, Ashley Fenzl wrote:
> > This seems like it would be an easy task, however I cannot find the 
> > answer on how to do it anywhere.  Could someone please tell me how to 
> > open an SPSS file in Stata?  Thank you.  I appreciate the help!
> I presume that Ashley has no access to StatTransfer, DBMS/Copy or other 
> data conversion software. (This is the thing to use if possible. 
> StatTransfer, in particular, can be called from within Stata using the 
> -stcmd- package, distributed with StatTransfer or alternatively 
> downloadable from SSC.)
>
> If you type -findit spss- in Web-aware Stata, then Stata will inform you 
> of the UCLA web page
>
> http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/faq/convert_pkg.htm
>
> which advises the user to use SPSS to write the data to a text file file 
> using the menu sequence
>
> File->Save as...
>
> and then to input the text file into Stata using the -insheet- command. 
> This will convert the variable names and values, but not the variable 
> labels, value labels and formats. (To convert those, you need data 
> conversion software.)
>
> I hope this helps.
>
> Roger
>
>
> --
> Roger Newson
> Lecturer in Medical Statistics
> Department of Public Health Sciences
> King's College London
> 5th Floor, Capital House
> 42 Weston Street
> London SE1 3QD
> United Kingdom
>
> Tel: 020 7848 6648 International +44 20 7848 6648
> Fax: 020 7848 6620 International +44 20 7848 6620
>   or 020 7848 6605 International +44 20 7848 6605
> Email: roger.newson@kcl.ac.uk
> Website: http://www.kcl-phs.org.uk/rogernewson
>
> Opinions expressed are those of the author, not the institution.
>
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