In addition to Genstat’s own spreadsheet data formats, Genstat supports a wide range of external data file formats for import and export. The following table provides a list of the data formats that Genstat supports.
| File type | Description |
| GWB | Genstat book files |
| GSH | Genstat spreadsheet files |
| XLS | Microsoft Excel files, in BIFF2-8 format (includes Excel 95, 97, 2000 and XP) |
| XLSX | Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010 and 2013 files |
| XLSM | Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010 and 2013 macro enabled files |
| WK1 | Lotus work files |
| WQ1 | Quattro work files |
| WB? | Quattro Pro work files |
| SXC | Open Office v1 spreadsheet files |
| ODS | Open Office v2 spreadsheet files |
| QPW | Corel Quattro work files |
| DBF | dBase files |
| DB | Paradox version 3-9 files (import only) |
| MTW | Minitab work 8-16 files (import only) |
| MTP | Minitab portable files (import only) |
| MST | MSTAT data files (import only) |
| MAT | Matlab matrix files |
| FMT | Gauss matrix files |
| DHT | Gauss v89 data set files (import only) |
| DAT | Gauss v96 data set files (PC and Unix) (import only) |
| DTA | Stata data sets (import only) |
| POR | SPSS portable ASCII data sets (import only) |
| REC | Epi-Info data files (import only) |
| SSD | SAS DOS data sets version 6.03-6.04 (import only) |
| SSD0? | SAS UNIX data sets version 6.03-6.12 |
| SD2 | SAS windows data sets version 6.07-6.12 (import only) |
| SAS7BDAT | SAS windows data sets version 7-9 |
| JMP | SAS JMP data sets for PC or Mac (import only) |
| TPT | SAS transport data sets |
| SAV | SPSS windows data sets (import only) |
| SYS | Systat data sets (import only) |
| SYZ | Systat 13 data sets (import only) |
| JNB | SigmaPlot 7-9 notebooks (import only) |
| . | S+ data frames and matrices (PC and Unix) |
| SDD | S+ text transport files |
| RDA | R data frames |
| STA | Statistica version 5-8 worksheet files (import only) |
| SF? | StatGraphics dataset files (import only) |
| WOR | INSTAT worksheet files |
| BMP | Windows bit mapped graphics files |
| WAV | Windows wave sound files |
| SHP | ArcGIS shape files |
| MIF | MapInfo transport text files |
| ARFF | Weka files |
| CSV | Comma-separated values files |
| DAT | Plain text files |
| TAB | Tab delimited files |
| DCT | OSIRIS survey data files (import only) |
| JPG | JPEG image format files |
| GIF | Graphics interchange format image files |
| PNG | Portable network graphic files |
| TIF | Tagged image format files |
| PSD | Photoshop image format files |
| EMF | Windows enhanced meta File images |
| CEP | Cornell ecology format files |
| TXT | Flapjack genotype and map files |
| LOC | MapQTL locus files (in conjunction with .map file) |
| QUA | MapQTL quantitative data files |
| CSV | R/QTL separate genotype files (csvs and csvsr) |
| DCF | CSPro data dictionaries (along with a CSPro data file) |
| WF? | EViews 5-8 data files (import only) |
| RAT | RATS data files (import only) |
| GTL | GRETL panel data files (import only) |
| GEN | Genstat command files (export only) |
Note that if the format you are looking for does not appear in the above list, please let us know at support@vsni.co.uk.
Additional information
Opening .XLS files produced by Genstat into Excel 2010 or later
Excel 2010 or later always generates a warning on opening a .XLS file (the Excel 95-2003 file format) that was not saved by Excel. You will get a warning saying: Office has detected a problem with this file. Editing it may harm your computer. Click for more details. If you click this warning and then click the Edit anyway button, the file will open as expected, with no further issues. Saving the file with Excel will stop this happening in the future. However, if using Excel 2010, it is always best to use the .XLSX file format, and then this will not happen.
SAS v7-9 Value Labels
Genstat supports the import of SAS value labels for SAS v7-9 files. SAS, unlike other systems, stores value labels as custom formats, in a separate catalogue file. The format of this catalogue file is undocumented, therefore, Genstat goes through the “front door” and rather than reading directly from the catalogue file, reads value labels from a new file that you create using SAS itself. This file contains the same information as the catalogue file, but is in a more convenient format for Genstat to read. You will be prompted for this format file when opening a SAS file. Answer Yes to the query ‘Do you want to specify a PROC FORMAT file for the dataset?‘ if you have created this file for the value labels. If you respond with Yes, it will then prompt for a file containing the value labels created with the PROC FORMAT statement (as below). By default, Genstat will look for a file called sas_fmts.sas7bat in the same directory as the import file. The selected file will be used to transfer your variable labels.
To create a file to include the PROC FORMAT statement for Genstat to import the SAS value labels, you will need run the following small program in SAS:
libname mylib ‘<path to SAS file>’;
proc format library = mylib cntlout = mylib.sas_fmts;
run;
where ‘<path to SAS file>’ is the directory that contains your import data file.
This procedure creates a SAS file in the directory ‘<path to SAS file>’ that has the format information for each SAS data file. In this case, the file will have the name sas_fmts.sas7bdat and it will be found in the same directory as the import file.
SAS catalogue files not only support conventional value labels (the one-to-one mapping of a string to a single number), but also the mapping of a range of numeric values to a single string (for example, zip code mapped to state). However, Genstat will only import conventional one-to-one value labels from SAS.
SigmaPlot 8/9
SigmaPlot 8/9 files may contain several notebooks. When importing to Genstat you are prompted to select the required notebook. However, the notebooks are numbered by the order of occurrence within the file, and this may not be the same order as that displayed within SigmaPlot.
INSTAT Worksheets
When opening INSTAT files you will be prompted with a dialog where you can specify additional options for how the data are to be imported.
SPSS
When an SPSS file is imported you will be prompted with a dialog where you can specify how Genstat will interpret the missing values in the SPSS files.
Matlab 5
When opening Matlab 5 files you will be prompted with a dialog where you can select the data structure that you want to be imported from the file.
Comma-separated Values (CSV) files
When opening comma-separated values files you will be prompted with a dialog where you can specify additional options for how the data are to be imported.
Cornell Ecology Format
Cornell Ecology Format files are text files in a special format. There is no standard extension for these files, so that the user specifies their own file extension. The default extensions interpreted as being this format are CEP, CRC, SPE and ENV but this can changed using the Tools | Spreadsheet Options | Sheets tab. Text files with the specified extensions will then be read into a spreadsheet rather than opened into an edit window.
MapQTL Location files
If opening a .LOC file from the File | Open menu, then if a the map file has the same name apart from the extension .map, then this will be read in conjunction with the .loc file automatically, otherwise you will be prompted for a .map file. Giving no map file for the .loc file is also an option, in which case the Chromosome and Position columns will be empty. Map files are read in conjunction with location files and are not read in on their own.
CSPro files
If opening a .DCF file from the File | Open menu, then you will prompted to select the level, records and items that you require from the CSPro survey file. The Select Records dialog lets you specify the level within the survey, and the records within that level, and then the Select Items dialog lets you select the items within the selected records, and how you want them read into Genstat.
GRIB2 meteorological data files
If opening a .GRB or GRIB file from the File | Open menu, then you will prompted to select the records and format you require using the Select records from GRIB2 meteorological data file dialog. If you do not have the required WGrib2.exe software installed, then the Download WGrib software dialog will first appear to allow you to download the software for the internet.
All Formats
When data are imported, if the columns appear to contain grouped values you will be prompted with a dialog where these columns can be converted to factors.