st: read text file with multiple spaces

[Mike Lacy <Michael.Lacy@colostate.edu>]

At 12:33 AM 8/19/2005, you wrote:
> Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 19:35:32 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Yu Zhang <whgyu1@yahoo.com>
> Subject: st: read text file with multiple spaces
>
> It's a shame to ask, but does anyone know how to read
> data (text file) with multiple spaces between
> variables?
  ..... (can't use multiple spaces as a delimiter)

Rant mode on: This feature of Stata also cropped up in SPSS several years 
ago, and is quite unfortunate.  It overthrows a very longstanding 
convention of free format input, perhaps 40 years old, which was to treat 
multiple occurrences of a space the same as a single space.  This 
contributed considerably to the robustness of free format input, and in 
fact IIRC was even enshrined as an element of good programming style. I 
believe, but don't know, that the decision to break this convention was 
made for all of us by Micro$oft when it implemented its import features in 
Excel in such a way, and then of course everyone had to follow along.
Rant mode off.

Regards,


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Mike Lacy
Fort Collins CO USA
(970) 491-6721 office





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