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  • How to delimit an ASC11 file that doesn't have spaces or commas??

    I am struggling to open a ASC11 text file of raw data into Stata. Using guides on how to do this, ive found the raw data will usually have commas or spaces so as to know when a new variable is being referred to however this is not present in my data. When I open it into Stata using file>import>text data it will put all of the data into one huge variable rather than delimiting it into the hundred that should be there. The data was downloaded from the socio.com US data.
    Any help or suggestion would be appreciated.
    Thanks.

  • #2
    Apparently access to socio.com requires a paid subscription, even to view the documentation, if not the data, so I cannot view a sample of the data to see how it might be structured.

    Can you post a link to the page on socio.com containing the particular dataset that you downloaded?

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    • #3
      Sometimes split helps with this problem.

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      • #4
        While socio.com provides raw data files it also gives *.CSV and SPSS portable file (*.POR) downloads.
        At least the CSV should be directly importable to Stata.

        Presumably the machine-readable DDI description and human-readable documentation should enlighten how to read the raw data. If not, the easiest is to ask the data provider the same question.

        There is also a possibility that the RAW data is not delimited at all, but is instead a fixed format data (presence of a DDI description is kind of a hint that the fields are fixed width). In that case you need to construct the corresponding import dictionary. The SPSS script to import/label the data provided by socio.com would be an easy starting point for porting the code to Stata.

        Since ALL the datasets are provided in same formats, there is a good chance that they are mechanically converted, using a tool like Stat/Transfer, and there should be no problem or issue to import it into Stata. The question however doesn't have anything material to grasp onto to advise.

        The folks at socio.com (if they are reading this message) could have provided, say, one study files for open access to solve exactly these kind of issues and give prospective clients an idea of what they are getting for the money, as one would probably expect a dataset of 87mln subjects to be distributed from a site with a name socio.com, not with 1,257 subjects (typical value there), which [to me personally] sounds more of an example dataset for a basic econometrics textbook.

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        • #5
          Thanks for your suggestions, unfortunately none of them worked however, I've been in contact with socio and they think there is a problem with the file, not the method used to open the file. Thanks

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