st: Re: reading foreign binary files

[Christopher F Baum <baum@bc.edu>]

--On Wednesday, September 4, 2002 2:33 -0400 Dan wrote:

> Is there a comparable routine that would enable Stata to read RATS data
> files? David Greenberg, Sociology Department, New York University
Stata does not read the binary files of any other program (not SPSS, not 
SAS, not Esxcel, not MATLAB...). In some cases one may use Stat/Transfer to 
translate binary datafiles from one format to another, but one of the few 
omissions from Stat/Transfer's repertoire is RATS. As far as I know the 
only option here would be to export the data from RATS into ASCII. It would 
be fairly straightforward to write a 'fromrats' routine that would read 
AATS' 'portable' format, which fully documents each variable (and provides 
its variable label), using Stata's file command.

It would be technically feasible, using Stata's file command, to write a 
routine that would read RATS binary files, but I think the far easier task 
would be to write a filter that could read format=portable files. The logic 
in Ulrich Kohler's recently published outdat might provide a useful model 
for such a routine.

Kit
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