Opening upspecified file extension

[Anwesha Chakrabarti]

Dear members,

I would like to know if it is possible to open an unspecified file extension using STATA? I received a 13 MB data file containing climate data, however, I am not able to detect the file extension. The data comes with an info file which I am attaching here.
I have tried to open it as a .txt file using STATA, and it did not work.
I have tried to open the file using R, and for the last 1 hr R has not been able to detect the extension!
I would be really grateful if anyone can provide any suggestion.
Thanks,
Anwesha

[Bjarte Aagnes]

https://www.statalist.org/forums/for...taset-to-stata

[Anwesha Chakrabarti]

Thanks for the suggestion, but this is not what I was looking for.
Now I know that it is a direct-access binary file, but there seems to be some issues with coverting from CP1252 to UTF-8! Still have no idea what's in the file.

[Joro Kolev]

I do not think Stata knows what is a "direct-access binary file". (Neither do I.)

It is possible that somebody here comes around and tells you how to open this.

But your best shot is to ask the person who produced and sent you this file how you are supposed to use it.

[Dario Maimone Ansaldo Patti]

Knowing the exact source of data could help to understand the type of data. You mentioned climate data. Are they from NOAA?

[Anwesha Chakrabarti]

The data is from Istituto di Scienze dell'Atmosfera e del Clima (Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate).

I already wrote to them, but no response yet. I have a feeling that R will be my best bet. I just wanted to know if there is an easier solution before going over the binary file tutorials in R.

Thanks.

[Bjarte Aagnes]

You might get some additional info about the file structure using Stata command hexdump, then read file using mata fopen -help mf_fopen-, or Stata command file -help file-

[Anwesha Chakrabarti]

Thanks, Bjarte. This is a great idea.