Infile using stata software

Infile should be used in a data step, while proc import and proc export are independent procedures. Stata help using stata to import data into stata reed college. Green text denotes a comment, intended for you to read purpose. Data preparationdescriptive statistics princeton university. Stata is a powerful statistical software that enables users to analyze, manage, and produce graphical visualizations of data. Introduction to data analysis using stata unuwider. In other words, you type in a command, and stata executes it. Both infile and infix allow using a separate dictionary file 20. An inclass instructional stata is a commanddriven statistical software program. For instance, in most software, you can save data as tabdelimited or comma. If you are reading a dataset with a dictionary, then stata is reading that data in record mode. Load the following dataset into stata using the use command. The stata infile command reads a space or commadelimited ascii text file.

An infile statement usually identifies data from an external file. If the raw data to be read into stata using freeformatted input contain character or string variables, you must precede the variables name with the keyword str followed immediately by the length of the string. Click on the name of a file containing a stata dataset with extension. Features new in stata 16 disciplines stata mp which stata is right for me.

Stata has three major commands for importing data from other programs. To read ascii data files into stata using the dropdown menu, click file import unformatted ascii data. People myself included are all the time creating new commands to make available to the public. I am tying to convert a comma delimited text file to a pipe delimited file but my input file name comma delimited file is a variable flname1. Importing text data into stata using infix command nsso. This is good, because social science data come in various formats, requiring great flexibility. Before we do that, we use the label define command to inform stata of. Practically any statistical software can openread these type of files. Once i settled on using stata as my primary statistical software package i realized how much it has to offer besides being less expensive. For example, specifying that a variable should be stored as type str25 means that stata.

This is good, because social science data come in various formats, requiring great flexibility among the statistical packages social scientists use. The file contains five variables v1, v2, v3, v4, and v5. There are many statistical packages similar to stata. The input statement can read data from external files. To understand it better lets do a math exercise by creating a dofile that converts fahrenheit into celsius and vice versa. Sasdecoder is a utility that can translate certain forms of sas code into stata dictionaries, stata dofiles, and stattransfer schema files. The only difference in these two approaches is in the order that the variables are stored in stata. How to use the stata infile and infix commands stata is a very flexible program, allowing you to readin and manipulate data in many different forms. Open the text data layout file available with data in excel. This means that stata has the concept of a row of data coming in from the raw data file and somehow being split up into the variables. Stata is a commercial statistical software package widely used by quantitative social scientists e. A brief introduction to using stata with ms windows. One of the easiest methods for getting data into stata is using the stata data editor, which resembles an.

Reed college stata help using stata to import data. It is advisable to check the log file and use proc contents to ensure the data have been read correctly. Inputting your data into stata stata learning modules idre stats. Saves the formats to a permanent format library to facilitate using a permanent sas data set in later analyses the program is stored in a file called dataprep. As an exercise do the same thing using infile from a previous section. Once you learn how to use software that is able to analyze data, you should learn how to exportimport datasets using that software. This video series is intended to help you learn how to program using sas for your statistical needs.

Stata is powerful command driven package for statistical analyses, data. By inserting str15 before the string variable country, we are telling stata to read and store country as a string variable with at most 15 characters. The following example shows how to use sas proc import to read in a spss data file called hsb2. If you have sas data you want to convert to stata, this may be a useful way to get your sas data into stata.

Importing a file with multiple delimiters per reco. Instead, you can simply type infile str10 state prod satis rank using columns. Seed import for more information about how to read in such. Commands can be entered using the menus and consequent dialog boxes at the top. This is a difficult data management problem, but it is manageable if you break the problem into several steps. Importing data data analysis and statistical software. Like spss, stata allows you to write code or use menus to perform your analysis. Do, then enter stata and run the program by going to the le menu and choosing do. The commands shown are fully explained in the stata of. It is primarily used by researchers in the fields of economics, biomedicine, and political science to examine data patterns. Open the stata software in your pc if you dont have the stata, feel free step 2. These files are created using a spreadsheet or a database program, such as. Reed college stata help making dictionary files in stata. The incorporation of data management, statistical analysis, graphics, simulations, regression, and custom programming and at the same time it also accommodates a system to disseminate userwritten programs that lets it grow continuously, making it an integral statistical tool.

It has an extensive collection of commands that can be used to easily accomplish practically any manipulation and analysis of. I want to tell infile to create variables, say, wku, src, apn and apt using the subsequent columns as in. Here we discuss using infile to read freeformat data, meaning datasets in which stata does not need to know the formatting information. Again, neither file is a dictionary file in statas sense.

The scope of sas statements it can accept includes limited features of infile, input, label, proc format and several other related statements that are used in specifying how raw data files are to be read. Notice that sas recognizes the file type to be imported by file extension. Finally, if you are using nicco, aristotle or the rs6000 cluster, there is a command specifically for converting sas data into stata called sas2stata. A datalines statement indicates that data follows in the job stream. Specifying file name as a variable in the infile statement. The infix command imports a fixed ascii file without a delimiter suppose you want to read the spacedelimited ascii file temp. Infile and datalines also read data in a matrix form. Inputting your data into stata stata learning modules. Although a bit crude, you may also copypaste your data from a spreadsheet into stata data editor to bring out the stata editor window, type. I once did something like this by first printing the pdf document to a plain text file, reading the text file into stata i think that i used infile and then parsing the text using conventional stata string functions before converting to numeric variables. You can use the infile statement with the file specification datalines to take advantage of certain datareading options that affect how the input statement reads instream data. Once you learn one, it is very easy to learn another. Once a sas dataset has been created we can convert it into any other format like excel, spss, stata, ect to run statistics on data. In windows or mac, you can type doedit in stata to open and edit any do files.

Using multiple styles of input in one input statement. Then to access this file within stata itself, the infile command is easy because we can skip variable names. Lets take a brief moment to introduce stata to those who have never used it before. Converting data into and out of stata general rule. Jeph herrin earlier wrote that sometimes the best solution isnt a stata solution. Saves the output file to a permanent sas data set and requests frequencies using proc freq and descriptive statistics using proc means. How to use sas lesson 3 importing external data youtube. The infile statement reads data directly using the datalines cards statement, imports various ascii text files, and imports data sets through network i. The code works fine as long as i specify the file name in the infile statement but i dont know how to specify file name as a variable. Converting data into and out of stata ucla statistics. Lesson 3 introduces the concept of permanent or external data. Stata is a statistical software package widely used by economists, other quantitative social scientists e.

Note for stata for mac and stata for windows users. This file can be read with the infile command as shown below. Following steps need to follow for the extraction of unitlevel data of nsso. Help infile multiple variable length fields posted 12062011 779 views in reply to caz not that hard if you use truncover and read initially as strings and then add a little logic to remove the trailing characters and convert to numeric if wanted. Q4 what are the competencies of using stata software. An alternative to infile using for reading fixedformat files is infix.

Stata is made for statistical analysis i it allows you to develop a wide range of statistical estimations i very powerful once you get it and relatively user friendly compared to other statistics software i kind of open source. Stata will read the file as a data that contains only variable. You can edit a do file anywhere then save as a file with the extension. Hansen, mark fredrickson, josh buckner, josh errickson, and peter solenberger, with embedded fortran code due to.

Such files are commonly made from spreadsheet programs like excel. Overview data analysis with stata library guides at. I am using the code below suggested by a stackoverflow member. The str7 notation informs stata that the variable immediately following sex is a string variable whose length is seven characters. Among the different books dealing with stata, the books by acock 2012, hamilton 2012, and scott long 2008 offer a complete description of the use of the software for carrying out a statistical analysis. How to use the stata infile and infix commands mit. But you seem to have written the infix command to read this file, so i dont know what. To control how the field is read from the text file, use the read format. I have told you about statas many advantages, but i should mention some. These are the infile command, the import delimited and the infix command. In addition, assuming the program the data is currently in contains the data in a table spreadsheets count, copying and pasting will often work. Whether its a dictionary file in some other software is immaterial to infile or infix. Stata is a very flexible program, allowing you to readin and manipulate data in many different forms. Once you have these two stata datasets, you can merge them.