Re: [Gretl-users] Request: options in reading excel data files
On Wed, 16 Apr 2008, andreas.rosenblad(a)ltv.se wrote:
a.lobianco(a)univpm.it wrote 2008-04-14 09:38:29 :
> Hello all.. I'm wandering if it is possible or scheduled for future
> releases to read Excel data files from the gretl command line with
> option to specific the sheet name and with the option to read datasets
> that are placed across rows instead of columns..
You can place a feature request here:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=416806&group_id=36234&func=b...
Yes, that's right. However, in response to the original question,
we don't currently have any plans to beef up the XLS importer. We
will, of course, hasten to fix any bugs that are reported.
As a general comment, please note that the CSV/text importer has
some refinements that are not present in the XLS importer. So the
preferred import route, if the data file contains anything
"non-standard", is via a CSV/text export from Excel, rather than
directly XLS -> gretl.
Also note that the "dataset transpose" command is available within
gretl for imported data that are the wrong way round (variables in
rows rather than columns).
Out of ignorance, and as a matter of interest: has anyone compared
the functionality of the importation of XLS data into gretl, with
the importation of such data into other econometrics programs?
I.e., how do we compare with Eviews, ox, R, or whatever, in terms
of flexibility (offsets, choice of worksheet), detection of
variable names and time-series dating, and so on?
Allin Cottrell