Package to read and write all Stata file formats (version 17 and older) into a R data.frame. The dta file format versions 102 to 121 are supported (including dtas files).

The function read.dta from the foreign package imports only dta files from Stata versions <= 12. Due to the different structure and features of dta 117 files, we wrote a new file reader in Rcpp.

Additionally the package supports many features of the Stata dta format like label sets in different languages (?set.lang) or business calendars (?as.caldays).

The package is hosted on CRAN.

install.packages("readstata13")

library(readstata13)
dat <- read.dta13("path to file.dta")
save.dta13(dat, file="newfile.dta")

To install the current release from github you need the platform specific build tools. On Windows a current installation of Rtools is necessary, while OS X users need to install Xcode.

# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("sjewo/readstata13", ref="0.11")

To install the current development version from github:

remotes::install_github("sjewo/readstata13", ref="testing")

See News for the full changelog.

Most attributes of the resulting data.frame are largely similar to the data.frames produced by foreign. Since newer Stata files require some additional attributes, the results of all.equal() and identical() will be FALSE for data.frames read by foreign::read.dta and read.dta13(). Otherwise, the data.frames produced by both functions are identical.

library(foreign)
library(readstata13)

# with factors
r12 <- read.dta("http://www.stata-press.com/data/r12/auto.dta")
r13 <- read.dta13("http://www.stata-press.com/data/r13/auto.dta")

all.equal(r12, r13, check.attributes = FALSE)

# without factors
r12 <- read.dta("http://www.stata-press.com/data/r12/auto.dta", 
                convert.factors = FALSE)
r13 <- read.dta13("http://www.stata-press.com/data/r13/auto.dta", 
                  convert.factors = FALSE)

all.equal(r12, r13, check.attributes = FALSE)

Marvin Garbuszus (JanMarvin) and Sebastian Jeworutzki (sjewo)

GPL2