I can't say much about running this on a Mac, but you might have a different version of stata file than we support. The easiest way around the problem is to write out an ascii (text) data set from stata and read it into Amelia. We wrote the text input and so we know it works; for other data files, we use a public domain data transfer package. Gary : Gary King, King(a)Harvard.Edu http://GKing.Harvard.Edu : : Center for Basic Research Direct (617) 495-2027 : : in the Social Sciences Assistant (617) 495-9271 : : 34 Kirkland Street, Rm. 2 HU-MIT DC (617) 495-4734 : : Harvard U, Cambridge, MA 02138 eFax (928) 832-7022 : On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Strom C. Thacker wrote: > Hello, > > I'm having some problems reading data into Amelia. When I try to > read a Stata file (.dta), it tells me: > > Error: Program was unable to read file contents > Please check instructions to make sure input is of correct type > > When I try to read it in text format, it just shuts down/crashes (the > program, not the operating system). > > I'm a Mac user, so I'm trying this on Virtual PC (though I've tried > it on a PC down the hall and had the same problems). > > Any suggestions? > > Thanks, > > Strom >

I know people who have used over a million observations and so I don't think that's an issue. Does it crash on input? or on running? What's the error message when you try it with a text file? Gary On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Strom C. Thacker wrote: > Thanks for the quick reply, Gary. I'm using Stata/SE 7.0. I've > tried reading in text files, but Amelia crashes when I do that. At > first I thought it might be due to the size of the file I was trying > to read in (773K), so I tried it with a much smaller one (18K) and it > did the same thing. > > I've tried text files with various extensions, including .raw, .out, > .txt, .asc and .csv, with similar results. > > Any thoughts? > > Thanks, > > Strom > > > At 6:57 PM -0500 1/30/03, Gary King wrote: > >I can't say much about running this on a Mac, but you might have a > >different version of stata file than we support. The easiest way around > >the problem is to write out an ascii (text) data set from stata and read > >it into Amelia. We wrote the text input and so we know it works; for > >other data files, we use a public domain data transfer package. > >Gary > > > > : Gary King, King(a)Harvard.Edu http://GKing.Harvard.Edu : > > : Center for Basic Research Direct (617) 495-2027 : > > : in the Social Sciences Assistant (617) 495-9271 : > > : 34 Kirkland Street, Rm. 2 HU-MIT DC (617) 495-4734 : > > : Harvard U, Cambridge, MA 02138 eFax (928) 832-7022 : > > > >On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Strom C. Thacker wrote: > > > >> Hello, > >> > >> I'm having some problems reading data into Amelia. When I try to > >> read a Stata file (.dta), it tells me: > >> > >> Error: Program was unable to read file contents > >> Please check instructions to make sure input is of correct type > >> > >> When I try to read it in text format, it just shuts down/crashes (the > >> program, not the operating system). > >> > >> I'm a Mac user, so I'm trying this on Virtual PC (though I've tried > >> it on a PC down the hall and had the same problems). > > > > > > Any suggestions? > > > > > > Thanks, > > > > > > Strom > > > >

one problem is number of variables since the number of parameters increases very fast in the number of variables p*(p+3)/2 if p is the number of variables. so 200 parameters is more than 20,000 parameters. That would be awfully difficult to get to work! I'd try to keep the number of variables to be much smaller, less than 40 or so, and fewer than that to start. Gary On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Strom C. Thacker wrote: > It crashes on input with a text file, before giving me any error message. > > The dataset doesn't have that many observations (~200), but it does > have several hundred variables. > > Strom > > At 7:42 PM -0500 1/30/03, Gary King wrote: > >I know people who have used over a million observations and so I don't > >think that's an issue. Does it crash on input? or on running? What's > >the error message when you try it with a text file? > >Gary > > > >On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Strom C. Thacker wrote: > > > >> Thanks for the quick reply, Gary. I'm using Stata/SE 7.0. I've > >> tried reading in text files, but Amelia crashes when I do that. At > >> first I thought it might be due to the size of the file I was trying > >> to read in (773K), so I tried it with a much smaller one (18K) and it > >> did the same thing. > >> > >> I've tried text files with various extensions, including .raw, .out, > >> .txt, .asc and .csv, with similar results. > >> > >> Any thoughts? > >> > >> Thanks, > >> > >> Strom > >> > >> > >> At 6:57 PM -0500 1/30/03, Gary King wrote: > >> >I can't say much about running this on a Mac, but you might have a > >> >different version of stata file than we support. The easiest >way around > >> >the problem is to write out an ascii (text) data set from >stata and read > >> >it into Amelia. We wrote the text input and so we know it works; for > >> >other data files, we use a public domain data transfer package. > >> >Gary > >> > > >> > : Gary King, King(a)Harvard.Edu http://GKing.Harvard.Edu : > >> > : Center for Basic Research Direct (617) 495-2027 : > >> > : in the Social Sciences Assistant (617) 495-9271 : > >> > : 34 Kirkland Street, Rm. 2 HU-MIT DC (617) 495-4734 : > >> > : Harvard U, Cambridge, MA 02138 eFax (928) 832-7022 : > >> > > >> >On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Strom C. Thacker wrote: > >> > > >> >> Hello, > >> >> > >> >> I'm having some problems reading data into Amelia. When I try to > >> >> read a Stata file (.dta), it tells me: > >> >> > > > >> Error: Program was unable to read file contents > > > >> Please check instructions to make sure input is of correct type > >> >> > >> >> When I try to read it in text format, it just shuts >down/crashes (the > >> >> program, not the operating system). > >> >> > >> >> I'm a Mac user, so I'm trying this on Virtual PC (though I've tried > >> >> it on a PC down the hall and had the same problems). > > > > > > > > > > Any suggestions? > > > > > > > > > > Thanks, > > > > > > > > > > Strom > > > > > > > > >