Re: [Gretl-devel] [Gretl-users] new command, "join"

>>> * Datafile format: you note the connection to large datasets. Yet so far >>> only text format files are supported. At the risk of stating the obvious >>> ("breaking into open doors" as we say in German), for large datasets >>> some binary format is probably wanted -- or do you include gzipped text >>> files when saying text files? >> >> We could read gzipped CSV without too much difficulty, though >> we don't at present. We could also apply the "join" apparatus >> to native gretl binary databases. However, our focus so far >> has been on processing big "third party" data sources, and >> these mostly seem to be in delimited text format. > > Or perhaps, fixed-format, though I haven't seen one in years. I'm not sure, but isn't Stata's .dta format a binary (non-text) file format? If so, then I guess many big micro datasets are distributed as binary. (I'm thinking of the German SOEP for example.)

>>> * I find the '--data' option naming unintuitive or too >>> generic; why not call it '--name' if it's about renaming? >> >> Jack originally suggested that this option should be called >> "payload". Maybe that's better than "data". > > Well, IMO "name" is just as generic as "data". I don't mind either. I > originally found "payload" mildly amusing. Anybody else out there with > strong a preference? > Well I'm not anybody else in this discussion's context, but I don't get the pun with payload, I must confess.