EViews.com

Hi,
I have a problem when I try to import a text file in EViews : (In fact there are 110 series in my text file);
pikachu contains numerical data (with some missing values), but EViews creates a alphanumerical series for this column.

I saw in EViews Command Reference that the option rformat seems to allow the specification of strings or numbers in the series, but I do not manage to use it : I tried
rformat=(pikachu# 9),
rformat=("pikachu"# 9),
rformat=(num1 1 num2 2 alpha1 3 alpha2 4 alpha3 5 pikachu# 6 num4 7)
but the error message

Syntax error: unexpected character '(' in rformat specification in "wfopen(type=text) "data.txt" delim=tab rformat=(pikachu# 9) na="NULL" names=("num1","num2","alpha1","alpha2","alpha3","pikachu","num4")

appears at each execution.

Is there a way to specify in this command that pikachu is a numerical series ?
(I know I could convert the alpha series in a numerical one using but there is probably an easier and neater way to do it ?)

Thanks in advance

I would guess it would be : but I haven't tested it (and nor do I believe I have ever used the rformat thing before). If it doesn't work, post a snippet of your data, and I'll play around.

Thanks for your help; unfortunately it still does not work with #pikachu .
Here is an extract from my .txt file : (it is not a .doc, but the extension .txt seems to not be allowed for attachments; you need to modify it in data.txt)

The "pikachu" column is the column 9, the other columns are well identified by EViews as numerical or alpha series.

Rather than messing around with the rformat, just add "scan=all" to the end of your open line. So something like this:

wfopen(type=text) "data.txt" delim=tab na="NULL" names=("num1","num2","alpha1","alpha2","alpha3","pikachu","num4") scan=all

I think that will work for you.

I'm guessing you're using EViews 6? EViews 7 correctly recognised the 9th column for me.

Thanks a lot Gareth, it works with scan=all (on EViews 6 indeed)