Transfer of data between different Stata versions

This page is maintained by Sergiy Radyakin and describes transfer of data files between various versions of a popular statistical package Stata.

If you are looking for information on transfer of data between different statistical packages, other pages might be more relevant. See e.g. savespss for transfer from Stata to SPSS.

Using the quick-reference table below you can quickly identify whether you need anything to load a particular dataset in your specific Stata.

Your Stata software version is
Your data file saved in Stata 9
Stata 10 use10
Stata 11 use10
Stata 12 use12
use10 		use12 use12
Stata 13 use13 use13 use13

Here are a few facts:

  1. The concept of a 'Dataset format' is different from the concept of 'Stata version'. When most users talk about "Stata-13 datasets" they are really talking about "Stata datasets formatted according to specification 117".
  2. The file format of Stata datasets is open. Which means the specifications are available to developers of other software. This differs Stata from other statistical packages that rely on closed and secret proprietary file formats, classical example being SAS.
  3. Not all of the Stata datasets specifications, however, are immediately available. Web-callable specifications are 117, 115, 114, and 113, dating all the way back to Stata 8. There are reasons to believe that earlier specifications can be made available upon request by StataCorp.
  4. Stata can read datasets saved with any earlier version of Stata.
  5. The reverse is not true: Datasets can't be saved in arbitrary older formats by newer Statas.
  6. 'Downgrading' of a dataset using an officially recommended (by StataCorp) route is an iterative (cascading) process, requiring intermediate versions of Stata. The process is described in detail in the FAQ and is implemented with the official -saveold - command of Stata and it's outdated cousin save,old.
  7. Adding to overall confusion, supported file format may depend on particuar version detail of Stata (such as 11.0 or 11.1). Reportedly, Stata 11 was updated to support specification 115, which it could not support at the time it was released, since Stata 12 in which it was introduced didn't exist yet.
  8. Saving to an older format usually implies some sacrifices, which depend on the dataset, hence it is necessarily a user-controlled process. Just recall, for example, that Stata 1.0 didn't have string variables at all! Nor did it have byte-wide numeric variables either.

There are alternatives to use10, use12, and use13 commands.

  1. A commercial alternative is a Stat/Transfer package, which is of excellent quality and updated regularly. When available, it is usually the best alternative.
  2. A popular commercial DBMS/Copy package was discontinued a while ago and the last available version, while reportedly still being in use in organizations having permanent and/or site-wide licenses, by now has hopelessly lagged behind and can only be recommended for converting data between archaic data types, and is not applicable to this discussion.
  3. A free alternative is R, though it may not support all the versions of Stata datasets.

The implementation of the use10, use12, and use13 commands is completely independent from the algorithms in the above alternatives.