Importing ".data" files in Stata 17

[Pabitra Chowdhury]

Version Stata 17.0

Is there any way/command on how I can import .data extension files in Stata? I have tried with use command but it gives an error. This is possibly as use command works with .dta file types not with .data.

Any help regarding this would be much appreciated.

[Daniel Schaefer]

Fun fact: when you make a file format for your software, you can make the file extension whatever you want - and .data is a popular choice. From what I can tell, there are several platforms that use the .data file extension, all of which have a different underlying format. Was this file created with Analysis Studio? Does it come with another file with an .stp extension? If not Analysis Studio, do you know what software was used to create the file? Do you have access to the original software used to create the file? If you open the file in a plain text editor like notepad, does it look like human readable text?

[Nick Cox]

As Daniel Schaefer implies use will read files in Stata's proprietary dta format, but it's not an absolute rule that they have a .dta extension.

If something like

use whatever.data

didn't work, then the file doesn't qualify and further advice depends on knowing what the file looks like. Showing us the first 10 or 20 lines or the first several hundred characters can be enough to say more.

It seems to have faded away but for many years .dat was a common extension for data files in text form, although without universal adherence to a particular file format inside.

I'd work upstream as well. Where did the files come from? Who created them? Who used them previously?