[Repec-data] A first proposal

[David K. Levine]

Or perhaps the summary of what is in the files should go at Christian's level.

Anyway, it might be useful to have a conceptual experiment of how the metadata might be used in mind. I would like to be able to write a program that could access various table formats (ascii, excel, various proprietary ones) and by using the metadata apply the appropriate program to read the data and import all the tables in the dataset into a common format (database, spreadsheet) of my choosing, with the program generating a description of what the data is, so that I would know what I am looking at, or so the program could provide appropriate labels.

----- On 8/29/2013 07:35 am repec-data at lists.ope wrote -----

Not entirely sure I follow that. So: thinking of a dataset as a bunch of related tables it seems like we want one type of metadata to describe the dataset which seems to be what Christian proposed. Then I understood we should have a second type of metadata to describe what is are in the tables (at least for those datasets that do in fact consist of a bunch of related tables). The thing is, the tables might be in one file, one per file, or several per file with a number of different files. Perhaps we need three levels - Christian's, the overall metadata for the dataset, a second describing how the data is distributed into files, and a third for describing a table?

----- On 8/29/2013 07:32 am repec-data

==

David K. Levine

Professor of Economics and Joint Chair RSCAS
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