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Re: st: insheet delimiter problem


From   "Joseph Coveney" <[email protected]>
To   "Statalist" <[email protected]>
Subject   Re: st: insheet delimiter problem
Date   Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:47:43 +0900

Nick Cox wrote:

I would never recommend alteration of the original data file. I would
always recommend that you work on a copy. With that proviso, this route
is more complicated than using -filefilter-.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lest there be a misunderstanding:  I wasn't advocating overwriting an
original data file (or even a working copy) with -filefilter-.  I don't know
about analogous Unix commands, but have to assume that they, too, have
infile=, outfile= among their parameter lists.

We'll have to agree to disagree about relative complexity.  Amicably, I
hope.  I just find stopping to manually parse through -hexdump , tabulate-
output hoping that I don't overlook successive members of a list of
candidate substitutes, and then setting up -filefilter- with the winner, and
then -insheet-ing the outfile, to be a similarly complicated prospect.
Maybe it's the inherent error-proneness of manually processing parallel
lists looking for things that aren't supposed to be there in one of them
that bothered me.

Joseph Coveney


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