[R] Archive format

[Thierry Onkelinx]

Dear Joe,

I'd choose a plain text format. They can be read and parsed with a
very wide range of software. That is IMHO a much more important factor
for long term archivation that file size or the ease to read it with
specific software.

The choice between tab-delimited, comma separated values, XML, JSON,
... will depend upon the data (and the metadata).

Best regards,

ir. Thierry Onkelinx
Instituut voor natuur- en bosonderzoek / Research Institute for Nature
and Forest
team Biometrie & Kwaliteitszorg / team Biometrics & Quality Assurance
Kliniekstraat 25
1070 Anderlecht
Belgium

To call in the statistician after the experiment is done may be no
more than asking him to perform a post-mortem examination: he may be
able to say what the experiment died of. ~ Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher
The plural of anecdote is not data. ~ Roger Brinner
The combination of some data and an aching desire for an answer does
not ensure that a reasonable answer can be extracted from a given body
of data. ~ John Tukey


2017-03-29 10:44 GMT+02:00 Joe Gain <joe.gain op uni-konstanz.de>:
> Hello,
>
> we are collecting information on the subject of research data management in
> German on the webplatform:
>
> www.forschungsdaten.info
>
> One of the topics, which we are writing about, is how to *archive* data.
> Unfortunately, none of us in the project is an expert with respect to R and
> so I would like to ask the list, what they recommend? A related question is
> to do with the sharing of data. We have already asked some academics, who
> have basically replied that they don't really know other than to strongly
> recommend a plain text format.
>
> We would also like to know, if members of the list recommend converting
> formats from commercial software such as S-Plus, Terr, SPSS etc. to an
> R-compatible format for long term archivation? Are there any general rules
> and best practices, when it comes to archiving (and sharing) statistical
> data and statistical programs?
>
> Any comments would be much appreciated!
> Joe
>
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