[Repec-data] A first proposal

[David K. Levine]

a table (standard usage in SQL) has rows and columns, i.e. a matrix (not necessarily of numbers). Implementations can differ - there can be many tables in a file (an excel spreadsheet with a number of different sheets, some databases, but not all), or one table in a file, or a table could be split over many files. The point is the metadata should say which it is, the file being a more fundamental object for the purpose of analyzing data than the way it is divided or not divided into files.

----- On 8/29/2013 07:52 am repec-data at lists.ope wrote -----

  David K. Levine writes

> Not entirely sure I follow that.

  Yeah, because you are not familiar with ReDIF, I suspect

> So: thinking of a dataset as a bunch of related tables
  
  I'm not sure I understand what a "table" is here. 

> 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

  I proposed "file" here. This is a more concrete thing than
  a "table", I think.

> (at least for those datasets that do in fact consist of a bunch of
> related tables). The thing is, 

==

David K. Levine

Professor of Economics and Joint Chair RSCAS
Department of Economics                    http://www.dklevine.com/
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John H. Biggs Distinguished Professor
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