Can I save estimation results to be used with older versions of Stata?

[ajmack]

If I use -estimates save- in Stata 12, then attempt to load the estimation results using -estimates use- in Stata 11.2, I run into an error. Is there a command analogous to saveold that works for estimation results?

[Richard Williams]

No idea. I wonder what happens if you use version control?

[Sergiy Radyakin]

If I use -estimates save- in Stata 12, then attempt to load the estimation results using -estimates use- in Stata 11.2, I run into an error. Is there a command analogous to saveold that works for estimation results?

There is a course in London on advanced Stata programming: Advanced Stata: Programming and other techniques to make your life easier, which declares among the other:

13. Be able to access and use stored estimation results

This appears to be exactly what you need.

My guess is that backward conversion is in general not possible. Or not possible without losses, or not possible in all cases. But to be able to say for sure, we need to know the storage format for estimates, which is not documented (unlike the well-documented data storage format). So you may start with requesting the corresponding missing part of the documentation (for each version in question) from StataCorp.

On a side note, you may explain what are you trying to do, and suggestions might pour in on simpler alternatives.

Best, Sergiy Radyakin

[ajmack]

Version control was a good idea, but does not seem to apply to stored estimates. If I use the command sequence

version 11.2
estimates save test

on the machine with Stata 12, then

estimates use test

on the machine with Stata 11.2, I get the error r(610):

file is from a more recent version of Stata; you need to upgrade your Stata; visit http://www.stata.com/

I am trying to proceed this way as I am running the estimation routine on a server (as it takes a while), but I would like to do all of the table and graph preparation on my local machine.

[Richard Williams]

You could request a 30 day evaluation version.

http://www.stata.com/customer-service/evaluate-stata/

Hopefully you would then seriously consider buying it! There are numerous good new features since Stata 11.

You could also just buy the cheapest version of Stata 13 that you can get -- I doubt that this would require Stata's most high-powered features. If you are an academic, see if you can get something through gradplan:

http://www.stata.com/order/new/edu/g...mpus-gradplan/