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st: Converting text file to Stata data file


From   Michael Eisenberg <[email protected]>
To   [email protected]
Subject   st: Converting text file to Stata data file
Date   Mon, 1 Oct 2012 11:52:16 -0700

Colleagues,

I have a question regarding importing a text file into Stata.  In many
ways, it's a follow up question to an earlier question I asked where I
needed to convert data from Stata into a text file with specific
information in designated character line positions.

Before the format assumed 100 characters per line. Where () represents
which line characters are assigned to a given field.

(1-20) LAST NAME
(21-35) FIRST NAME
(36) MIDDLE INITIAL
(37-45) SSN
(46-47) MONTH OF BIRTH
etc

In this case, outfixt was the brilliant answer.

I now have an output file in a similar format and I need to convert it
back into a Stata data file.  Is there a similar command that can
convert a text file into a Stata data file where the user can
designate which columns correspond to individual fields?

Thanks in advance for any guidance.

Best,
Mike




On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 7:05 AM, Austin Nichols <[email protected]> wrote:
> Michael Eisenberg <[email protected]>:
> replace lastname=substr(lastname,1,20)
> *etc, then:
> ssc install outfixt
>
> On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 9:56 AM, Michael Eisenberg
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Colleagues,
>>
>> I have to prepare a file for a linkage project, and I’m hoping stata can assist.
>>
>> Currently my data is in a stata data file.
>>
>> The linkage company requires a set format of data in a plain text format.
>>
>> The format assumes 100 characters per line. Where () represents which
>> line characters are assigned to a given field.   If a variable has
>> more characters than the designated number of characters, it is to be
>> truncated
>>
>> (1-20) LAST NAME
>> (21-35) FIRST NAME
>> (36) MIDDLE INITIAL
>> (37-45) SSN
>> (46-47) MONTH OF BIRTH
>> (48-49) DAY OF BIRTH
>> (50-53) YEAR OF BIRTH
>>
>> The data currently looks like this
>>
>> Lastname  firstname  middlename   SSN           MonOB   DaOB    YrOB
>> Smith   John             Thomas 122342789            01 04              1947
>> Jones   Craig   Harvey  600656785            10 24              1957
>> Stata           Jim             Smith   423456751            12 06              1970
>> Johnson Mike            Thomas  056445671     01        16              1971
>>
>> Can Stata perform such a transformation?  If not, are there other
>> programs that could be recommended.
>>
>> Thank you in advance.
>>
>> Mike
>
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