Stat Transfer

	Windows®	Mac	Linux	Solaris
Further Requirements	Minimum 1024*786 Display	Minimum 1024*786 Display	Minimum 1024*786 Display
Operating System	XP, Vista oder Windows 7/8/10 (64 or 32 Bit)	Apple Mac OS-X 10.4 (Tiger), 10.5 (Leopard), 10.6 (Snow Leopard), 10.7 (Lion), 10.8 (Mountain Lion - S/T V12 only), 10.9 (Mavericks - ST V12 and above) and macOS Sierra and higher	32 oder 64 bit Kernel 2.6 or higher glibc 2.3.3 or higher gtk 2.6.4 or higher	Solaris 10 or higher
Minimum CPU	Intel or AMD x86 Processor	Intel or PowerPC Processor	Intel or AMD x86 Processor	Intel or SPARC Processor
Min. RAM	512 MB	512 MB	512 MB
Disc Space	25 MB	20 MB	20 MB

 

More Features:

Formats

• Stata 15//MP
• BayesiaLab (Write Only)
• JSON-Stat (Read Only)

 

Extended Attribute Support

Variable- and File-level metadata are now supported for reading and writing from the following formats:

• R (Attr)
• SAS (extended attributes)
• Stata (characteristics)
• JMP (attributes)
• ASCII - Stat/Transfer Schemas

 

Enhanced SAS Support
 

• Value Labels can now be written directly to native Windows SAS catalog files (sas7cat)
• Optional control over date, time and date-time formats used for writing.
• All SAS date and time formats are recognized on reading.
• Labels for SAS extended missing are now supported.

 

Other New Features
 

• Directory recursion is now available in the wildcard copy command
• An extra variables can be created from the sheet name when combining worksheets
• Extra string variables can be created from value labels when writing to delimited ASCII, described by a schema. These can then be read back in any format.
• Much faster read of R files.
• Postgres support in ODBC.

 

Larger Limits
 

• Excel Files > 4 GB
• SAS files > 32K variables
• Stata Files > 32K variables
• dBASE > 2GB

 

The following data formats have been added:

 

• EViews
• Genstat
• STATA 14 (fully supports unicode and the higher observation limits of STATA MP)

Stat/Transfer Version 13 has a number of new or improved features:

New Options

• Preserve numeric widths
• Control over SAS Date and Time formats
• Blank columns can be optionally transferred from worksheets
• Value labels can be written to Excel

New Control over Variable Order and Characteristics. Stat/Transfer 13 has a new, editable, schema format for ASCII delimited files. If you write a file from any import source into this format, you can then re-order variables, change their names, types, and output widths, assign labels or do anything else you need to get your data in just the format you need. Then, when you transfer from this format into your chosen final output format, your changes will be applied.

 

Transfer Screen

 

The Transfer screen allows you to perform routine transfers with a few mouse clicks.

1. Select an input file type.
2. Select the input file.
3. Select the output file type.
4. Stat/Transfer will then make up an output file specification for you. This will consist of the input directory and file name with the correct extension appended for your new output type. (You can change it if you like.)
5. If you want to transfer all variables and cases, click on ‘Transfer’ and you are done. (You can select variables and cases in the next two screens, the Variables dialog box and the Observations dialog box, before clicking on ‘Transfer’.)

For instance, although the output path is automatically constructed from the input path, if you change the path to another drive or directory, that directory will be used for the automatically generated output paths of subsequent transfers. Thus, if you intend to move files from one drive or directory to another, Stat/Transfer will recognize that fact and not require you to navigate to your new directory every time. To further save key stokes, most recently used lists are maintained both for input files and for output directories.

Variable Screen

The Variables screen allows you to choose which variables will be transferred to your output data set. You can also view the characteristics of each variable, such as the preferred output or “target” types, the variable labels and the value labels.

Stat/Transfer automatically makes an extra pass through your data to determine the best output variable type and the minimum string width for your variables. However, if you wish, you can manually choose the storage types of each of your variables.

You can quickly choose variables to keep or drop by using the “Quick Variable Selector” window, which accepts wildcards, lists and ranges of variable names. The “Quick Type Selector” similarly makes fast work of changing variable types.

Observations Screen

The Observations screen allows you to select just the records you want from your input file. You can enter arithmetic expressions and selection conditions. You can also use powerful sampling functions. Selection syntax is designed for ease of use. For instance you can use wildcards and enter lists of conditions separated by commas as in:

where state = CA,AZ,W*,O*

Options Screen

The Options screen allows you to control how Stat/Transfer operates. You can control, for instance, whether you want to be warned if a file is about to be overwritten. These options are organized by category and provide extensive control over transfer operations. The defaults are designed sensibly, so that in the most typical cases, the options need not be touched. However, at times the defaults will not be what you need, so Stat/Transfer gives you the flexibility to control every aspect of the transfer process when you need to.

Run Programm Screen

Stat/Transfer has always had a stand-alone command processor that allows transfers to be run in batch mode with simple commands. Now, the command processor and the user interface have become integrated. The user interface can automatically generate command files after your transfer has been performed and then you can then re-run these transfers right from the user interface. From the Run Program screen you can load programs, edit them if necessary and call the command processor to run your programs.

Log Screen

The Log screen allows you to see progress and error messages, which can be read as the transfer progresses and can be saved to a file. In case of errors or problems, this file can be sent to the technical support.

The Stat/Transfer menu interface is fine for occasional use or for fine-tuning the characteristics of your variables, but what if you need to move the same thirty files each week? For problems like this and for those users who just can’t stand mice and menus, Stat/Transfer provides a command processor.

This text-mode program will accept your commands in simple copy-like syntax. For instance:

copy in.sas7bdat out.sav

will convert the SAS file, in.sas7bdat, to an SPSS file, out.sav

You can type such commands directly at the command processor’s prompt, or you can store them in a text file (a command file) and execute them later.

Such deferred executions using command files can be done:

from the command processor’s prompt:

ex myfile

from the operating system command line:

st myfile.stc

with Windows, by simply double-clicking on the command file name from the Windows Explorer or from the Run Program dialog box of the Stat/Transfer user interface.

Further, for quick transfers, at the operating system prompt you can enter just the name of the Stat/Transfer program, st, the input file and the output file:

st in.sas7bdat out.sav

This will transfer a complete SAS file directly to an SPSS file, right from the operating system prompt.

The command processor includes the ability to move a whole group of files using wildcards. For instance, the command:

st in\*.sav out\*.dta

This will convert an entire directory of SPSS files to Stata format and write the converted files to another directory. It also gives you the ability to combine multiple input files into a single output file.

The command processor will execute other programs and operating system commands if you precede their name with DOS, or with the word ‘shell”, or with an exclamation point (!). You can therefore call programs such as zip from your Stat/Transfer command files. For instance, the following sequence of commands will extract a Stata file from a zip file, convert it to Access file and then delete the extracted file:

!unzip data.zip large.dta
!copy large.dta out.mdb
!del large.dta

The command processor provides the ability to execute a ‘where’ command for record selection, a ’keep’ or ‘drop’ command for selecting variables and a variety of commands for specifying transfer options and the information that is necessary to connect to ODBC databases.

On Windows platforms, to make ODBC connections even easier, the command processor provides the facilities to allow you to be prompted once for connection information, and then to save a returned ODBC connection string to disk in encrypted form so that it can be recalled for completely automatic and ‘promptless’ re-connections to your database.