Re: st: Compress a closed file

[Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com>]

Depends what you mean by compress.

If you mean compress in the sense of using a stand-alone program like
some flavour of zip or tar, then yes, you can, but I don't think it
will solve your problem.

If you mean compress in the sense of the Stata command -compress- ,
then no, you can't.

I think you are going to need to read some of the variables in,
-compress-, -save-, etc.
and -merge- saved files. Or ditto, but with observations, not
variables. Or does your analysis really need _all_ the variables?

Incidentally, note how helpful the Stata -cmdname- convention,
commended in the FAQ, is for resolving ambiguity.

Nick

Mohamad Al-Ississ, Ph.D.

> The file I'm trying to open a file that's too large for my Stata's memory (I
> maxes the memory setting). I get the "no room to add more observations..."
> error. I know that if I compress the file, it'll solve the problem. Is there
> a way to compress the file w/o opening it?
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