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st: Re:too many variables


From   Christopher F Baum <[email protected]>
To   [email protected]
Subject   st: Re:too many variables
Date   Thu, 21 Oct 2004 08:01:19 -0400

On Oct 21, 2004, at 2:33, Kimberley wrote:

I am using Intercooled Stata 8, and am running into the problem of too many
variables. The set is very large, but I only need about a quarter of the
variables, but I cant drop any variables until stata reads them in and
defines the variables. Is there a way to drop some variables before stata
defines them? Upgrading to SE is not really an option.
I don't think that Joseph's suggestion regarding 'use' will work if the file is not already in Stata format. If the file is in ASCII, you can bring the .dct file into any text editor (see the SSC item texteditors)--NOT Excel nor Word!!!---and omit the variables you do not want to read. Then it doesn't matter how many variables are in the .dat file, since the .dct will specify that it is to read only a subset of them.

You can't use the do-file editor to edit a huge .dct, but Excel is surely not the right tool. If you're using a PC, Notepad or one of its variants would probably work, but there are much better choices.

Kit Baum, Boston College Economics [email protected]
http://ideas.repec.org/e/pba1.html

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