[Gretl-users] Request: options in reading excel data files

[Allin Cottrell]

On Wed, 16 Apr 2008, andreas.rosenblad at ltv.se wrote:

> a.lobianco at univpm.it wrote 2008-04-14 09:38:29 :
> 
> > Hello all.. I'm wandering if it is possible or scheduled for future
> > releases to read Excel data files from the gretl command line with
> > option to specific the sheet name and with the option to read datasets
> > that are placed across rows instead of columns..
> 
> You can place a feature request here:
> http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=416806&group_id=36234&func=browse

Yes, that's right.  However, in response to the original question, 
we don't currently have any plans to beef up the XLS importer.  We 
will, of course, hasten to fix any bugs that are reported.

As a general comment, please note that the CSV/text importer has 
some refinements that are not present in the XLS importer.  So the 
preferred import route, if the data file contains anything 
"non-standard", is via a CSV/text export from Excel, rather than 
directly XLS -> gretl.  

Also note that the "dataset transpose" command is available within 
gretl for imported data that are the wrong way round (variables in 
rows rather than columns).

Out of ignorance, and as a matter of interest: has anyone compared 
the functionality of the importation of XLS data into gretl, with 
the importation of such data into other econometrics programs?  
I.e., how do we compare with Eviews, ox, R, or whatever, in terms 
of flexibility (offsets, choice of worksheet), detection of 
variable names and time-series dating, and so on?

Allin Cottrell