Input files must contain rows of numbers or characters preceded by
<label>. Rows may be tab-delimited or whitespace-delimited. Tabs are
still preferred when text cells contain spaces, but whitespace-delimited
rows are convenient for pasted regression output. The numbers can be
arbitrarily long, can be negative, and can also be in scientific
notation.
For economics regression output, a numeric estimate followed immediately by a parenthesized numeric standard error is treated as one cell:
0.125*** (0.031) -0.456 (0.100)
is parsed as two entries, 0.125*** (0.031) and -0.456 (0.100). A row that
starts with parenthesized standard errors, such as (0.031) (0.100), is parsed
as separate entries because those standard errors usually occupy their own row.
<tab:Test>
1 2 3
2 3 1
3 1 2
The rows do not need to be of equal length.
<tab:FunnyMat>
1 2 3 23 2
2 3
3 1 2 2
1
Completely blank (no tab) lines are ignored. If a “cell” is merely “.”, “[space]”, or “NA” then it is treated as missing. That is, in the program:
<tab:Test>
1 2 3
2 . 1 3
3 1 2
is equivalent to:
<tab:Test>
1 2 3
2 1 3
3 1 2
This feature is useful as several languages output missing values as
NA, blank, or “.”. Last, StableFill understands scientific notation of
the form: [numbers].[numbers]e(+/-)[numbers]
<tab:TestScientific>
23.2389e+23
-2.23e-2
-0.922e+3
Single statistics can be written as <Val:...> or <Value:...> blocks and referenced with
inline placeholders:
<Val:sample_size>
5708
The sample includes observations.