MODIFY A SET OF FRAMES ON DISK

If you work with multiple datasets in memory or frames, you can now modify a frameset (.dtas) file without loading it into memory—add frames in memory to the frameset file, or drop frames from the frameset file.

 

Data frames were introduced in Stata 16 to allow working with multiple datasets in memory. In Stata 18, we added the capabilities to save and load a set of frames, known as a frameset.

 

We now introduce frames modify, which allows you to conveniently modify a frameset file without loading it into memory. You can add frames in memory to a frameset with frames modify, add(). You can drop a set of frames from a frameset with frames modify, drop().

 


Suppose we are working with two longitudinal datasets to explore economic behavior over time. One of the datasets has information about labor outcomes of individuals over time (nlswork.dta), and the other has information about market values of companies over time (grunfeld.dta).

 

 

We now save all frames in a frameset:

 

 

Now suppose we want to look into patterns of domestic research and development. We have a longitudinal dataset xtcoint.dta.

 

 

We can add frames to the potentially large frameset without loading the latter into memory:

 

 

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We now have a frameset with three features of the economy over time:

 

 

We can drop frames from the frameset without loading it:

 

 

We now have