Exported SEER*Stat results are stored in an ASCII text data file. The format description of the data file is written to a second text file, the export dictionary file. You may also choose to output a third file containing SAS code that reads in the text data file.
When the Export dialog first appears, default name and directories for each file will be presented. Use the Browse button or type in the fields to specify your own names and directories.
If you have not saved the matrix, the default path for the files will be the same as the user variables path specified on the Preferences dialog. The default filenames will be "export.txt" for the data file, "export.dic" for the export dictionary file, and "export.sas" for the SAS code file.
If you have saved the matrix, the default path for the files will be the same as the path of the saved matrix. Their default names will be the first part of the matrix filename, plus the appropriate extension (".txt", ".dic", or ".sas").
The results in the matrix will be exported to this file. The data may be saved as ASCII text or in compressed text using gzip compression. SEER*Stat determines whether to store it as text or gzipped text based on the extension that you use in the filename. The ".txt" extension is recommended for un-compressed files. Use ".gz" as the extension if you would like the data to be compressed.
The data file is a delimited text file. You can choose the character used as the field delimiter, as well as other file format specifications, using the various options on the Export dialog. A detailed description of the data file's format is given in the export dictionary file.
When the Generate SAS Code to Read Data checkbox is marked, SEER*Stat will also output a file containing code that can be used in a SAS program to read in the accompanying data file. This code includes the associated formats, and takes into account your settings, such as the line and field delimiters you specify.
The export dictionary file includes the following information:
the name of the data file being described, as well as the name of the database used to generate the results
variable names and format information
file format information, including the field delimiter, line delimiter, and other options specified on the Export dialog
The information in the export dictionary file is presented in a Windows INI file format. This format presents information in a structured arrangement that can be understood by people, but that can also be easily used as input to other software packages. The sections of the export dictionary file are as follows.
This section provides the name of the export data file associated with this export dictionary, the name of the matrix from which the data was exported, and the name of the database used in the session that generated the data.
This section contains information about specific options used in the session that generated the data in the export data file.
This section lists the settings of the options used on the Export dialog.
This section lists the names of all variables and statistics included in the export data file. These are listed in the order in which the fields appear in the data file. The keys contain a number (for example, Var1Name, Var2Name, etc.). Keys are also given for variables that were specified in the row, column, or page on the Table Tab. The Var1Dimension, Var2Dimension, etc. keys are used to identify whether the variable was a row, column, or page variable in the matrix.
A format section is included for each table variable. These sections list all valid groupings for the variable. If the Numeric Representation option was used when exporting the data, the numeric code assigned to each grouping is provided. These codes are assigned, starting at zero, to the groupings in the order in which they are listed in the variable's definition.