error message invalid dBASE when converting Eurostat shapefile into dta

[Federica Di Marcantonio]

Dears

I try to convert the shapefiles contained in the zip file from: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/gis...cal-units/nuts

into .dta files. I have downloaded the SHP zip (NUTs 2016 ) and when converting into dta I always get the same error message :

shp2dta using "mydir\NUTS_BN_10M_2010_3035_LEVL_3", data("mydir\dta\NUTS_BN_10M_2010_3035_LEVL_3.dta") coord("mydir\dta\NUTS_BN_10M_2010_3035_LEVL_3_coor.dta") genid(id) gencentroids(cc) replace
type: 3
mydir\NUTS_BN_10M_2010_3035_LEVL_3.dbf: invalid dBASE data type

Could you please help me to understand what the problem might be?

Thank you in advance

Federica

[Jorrit Gosens]

I get the same and have no idea why. However, if you are on Stata 15, you could try:

spshape2dta "mydir\NUTS_BN_10M_2010_3035_LEVL_3"

[Federica Di Marcantonio]

I have already tried but since I have stata 14 it is not working.
Thanks anyway

[Jorrit Gosens]

Not sure how often you will do this, but you could do the following:
open your dbf in excel
save as xls or xlsx
import the xls or xlsx into stata
export as dbf, and overwrite the original dbf file

re-run your code above.


Seems shp2dta or the functions it relies on cannot handle the file format used by Eurostat? (dBase v7?) Anyone have any idea?

[Federica Di Marcantonio]

Ok Thanks I will try it

[Jorrit Gosens]

Actually, you could also try importing the dbf file, and exporting it as a dbf with the same name, all within Stata. That would help reproducibility.
A little surpised that that worked.

[Federica Di Marcantonio]

I tried with one of the dbf file, but probably the command I use is not correct

odbc insert, table("nydir\NUTS_RG_BN_10M_2010") dsn("NUTS_RG_10M_2010_3035") create
The ODBC driver reported the following diagnostics
[Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] Data source name not found and no default driver specified
SQLSTATE=IM002

Another question shall I run the same command for all the 40 (may be more) dbf files? Then let's see if it is possible to do it in a loop.
Thanks

Federica

[Jorrit Gosens]

You can do:

import dbase using NUTS_BN_10M_2016_3035_LEVL_3.dbf, clear
export dbase using NUTS_BN_10M_2016_3035_LEVL_3.dbf, replace

No need for ODBC tools.
And yes, this would be possible in a loop:

local myfilelist : dir . files "*.dbf"
foreach file of local myfilelist {
import dbase using `file', clear
export dbase using `file', replace
}