Order Stata
Data management
Importing/exporting data 
- Import and export data from Excel .xls and .xlsx files
- Import and export CSV and delimited data
- Copy/paste data from spreadsheets
- Input data in spreadsheet editor
- Read from and write to SQL sources with ODBC (see below)
- Import and export fixed-format data using a dictionary
- Import and export any type of text data
- Unicode (UTF-8) support, including conversion from/to extended ASCII
- Import EBCDIC data and convert EBCDIC to ASCII
- Import and export data in the format required by the FDA for NDA
submittals
- Import and export SAS Transport XPORT files
- Import Federal Reserve Economic Data New
- Import from Haver Analytics databases
- Import and export dBase files New
- High-level import/export of full Excel worksheets
- Low-level cell-by-cell access to write results to and read data from Excel, including graphs, formulas, date formats, currency formats, bold, italics, and more
ODBC support
- Import data from any ODBC data source, such as Oracle, SQL Server, Access, Excel, MySQL, and DB2
- Export data to new or existing ODBC tables
- Execute custom SQL commands individually or in batches
- Customize ODBC connection strings
- Support for ODBC
- Support for VARCHARs/CLOBs and BLOBs
- Support for Unicode
- Clipboard Preview Tool lets you control how data will be pasted
- Manage variables with the Variables Tool
- For Windows , Mac , and Unix
Properties window
- Manage variables
- Manage dataset properties
- For Windows , Mac , and Unix
- Change storage types, names, and formats
- Add and edit value labels
- Attach notes to variables
- Filter variables
- For Windows , Mac , and Unix
Watch Label variables.
Watch Label the values of categorical variables.
Watch Change the display format of a variable.
Watch Add notes to a variable.
Watch Label the values of categorical variables.
Watch Change the display format of a variable.
Watch Add notes to a variable.
- Statistical functions Updated
- Mathematical functions
- Trigonometric functions
- String functions
- Unicode functions
- Regular expressions
- Date and time functions
- Time-series functions
- Random-number functions
- 18 functions Updated
- Stream random numbers New
- Matrix functions
- Programming functions
Watch Round a continuous variable.
Data reorganization
- Row–column transposition
- Data reshaping
- Stacking of variables
- Collapsing into means, totals, etc.
Watch Reshape data from wide format to long format.
Watch Reshape data from long format to wide format.
Watch Reshape data from long format to wide format.
- UTF-8
- Translation of extended ASCII to UTF-8
- Unicode-aware string functions
- Locale-based sorting and string comparison
Watch Unicode in Stata.
Labels
- Dataset labels
- Variable labels
- Value labels (e.g., male and female for 0 and 1)
- Ability to switch between multiple sets of data, variable, and value labels
- Missing-value labels
- Support for multiple languages, including Unicode support
Notes
- Extensive notes can be attached to a dataset
Data snapshots
- Allow multiple levels of undo to modified datasets
- Up to 1.5 TB of RAM supported
- Up to 120,000 variables in Stata/MP; up to 32,767 variables
in Stata/SE Updated - 20 billion or more observations in Stata/MP
- Up to 2.1 billion observations (Stata/SE and Stata/IC)
Sorting
- Ascending or descending sorts
- Multiple-key sorts
- Numeric and string sorts
- Locale-aware Unicode string sorting and comparison
Combining datasets
- Merge datasets
- By key variables
- By observations
- Join datasets
- Outer join
- Append datasets
- Append time series
Special datasets
Dynamic document generation New
Creation of Word, Excel, and PDF files
- High-level creation of Word documents containing Stata results and graphs New
- Low-level programmatic access for fine-control creation of Word documents Updated
- High-level creation of PDF files containing Stata results and graphs New
- Low-level programmatic access for fine-control creation of PDF files Updated
- High level import/export of full Excel worksheets
- Low-level cell-by-cell access to write results to and read data
from Excel, including graphs, formulas, date formats, currency
formats, bold, italics, and more.
Image output
- Save graphs as PDFs
- Save graphs to EPS or TIFF files for publication
- Save graphs to PNG or SVG files for the web Updated
Utilities
- Count number of observations that satisify specified conditions
- Formatted and unformatted disk I/O
- Zip-file support
- Unicode conversion from/to extended ASCII
- Custom filters to manipulate text files
Variable management
- Generation of new variables
- Replacement of existing variables
- Renaming variables
- Encoding and decoding string variables
- Reordering variables in dataset
Watch Create a new variable that is calculated from other variables.
Watch Convert categorical string variables to labeled numeric variables.
Watch Create a categorical variable from a continuous variable.
Watch Convert a string variable to a numeric variable.
Watch Identify and replace unusual data values.
Watch Convert categorical string variables to labeled numeric variables.
Watch Create a categorical variable from a continuous variable.
Watch Convert a string variable to a numeric variable.
Watch Identify and replace unusual data values.
Dataset utilities
- Flexible description of variables, labels, and types
- List values of variables
- Data signatures to verify the integrity of datasets
- Codebooks for variables
- Value-label reports
- Duplicates and missing values tables
- Compress (make dataset as small as possible without loss of accuracy)
Variable types
- Numeric storage types
- Byte
- Integer (int)
- Long
- Float
- Double
- String (including Unicode, very long strings and BLOBs)
- Dates and times
- Business calendars
Long string support
- Up to 2 billion character long strings
- Coalescing of duplicate values to save memory
- Binary 'strings' (BLOBs)
- Import and export entire files into long strings/BLOBs
- Unicode (UTF-8) strings
Stored results
- Save results to disk for later use
- Store estimation results in memory
- Create tables to compare results
Additional resources
- Data Management Reference Manual
- Data Management Using Stata: A Practical Handbook by Michael N. Mitchell
- In the spotlight: import excel and export excel: Easing the exchange of data
- In the spotlight: Export tables to Excel
- In the spotlight: Finding and using results, constants, functions ... anything
- In the spotlight: Storing long strings and entire files in Stata datasets
- The Stata Blog: Data management category
- Using Stata Effectively: Data Management, Analysis, and Graphics Fundamentals training course
See New in Stata 15 for more about what was added in Stata 15.
