dta: A DuckDB Extension for Reading and Writing Stata Files

A DuckDB extension for reading and writing Stata .dta files (formats 117--121, corresponding to Stata 13--18).

Installation

Installation is simple through the DuckDB Community Extension repository, just type

INSTALL dta FROM community;
LOAD dta;

The extension adds the table function read_dta (also becomes the default reader for .dta files) and enables writing tables to .dta format with COPY.

Usage

-- Read a .dta file
SELECT * FROM read_dta('auto.dta');

-- Infer the .dta file format and read with the default reader
SELECT * FROM 'auto.dta';

-- Read with value labels converted to DuckDB ENUMs
SELECT * FROM read_dta('auto.dta', value_labels=true);

-- Write a table to .dta
COPY my_table TO 'output.dta' (FORMAT dta);

-- Infer the .dta file format and write with the default writer
COPY my_table TO 'output.dta';

Type Mapping

Reading (.dta to DuckDB)

Stata type	DuckDB type
byte	TINYINT
int	SMALLINT
long	INTEGER
float	FLOAT
double	DOUBLE
double (%td)	DATE
double (%tc)	TIMESTAMP
strN, strL	VARCHAR

When value_labels=true, columns with value labels are returned as ENUM.

Writing (DuckDB to .dta)

DuckDB type	Stata type
BOOLEAN, TINYINT	byte
SMALLINT	int
INTEGER	long
BIGINT, HUGEINT	double
FLOAT	float
DOUBLE, DECIMAL	double
DATE	double (%td)
TIMESTAMP	double (%tc)
VARCHAR	strL
ENUM	byte/int/long + value labels

The writer produces format 119 (Stata 15), supporting up to 2 billion variables.

Building

make

Testing

make test

License

MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

Stata is a registered trademark of StataCorp LLC. This extension is not affiliated with or endorsed by StataCorp LLC.