{{confusing, date=March 2009 A

file format A file format is a Computer standard, standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary format, pr ...

is a procedure to encode information for storage in a computer file. The databank format is an

ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because ...

file format for

time series In mathematics, a time series is a series of data points indexed (or listed or graphed) in time order. Most commonly, a time series is a sequence taken at successive equally spaced points in time. Thus it is a sequence of discrete-time data. E ...

econometric Econometrics is the application of statistical methods to economic data in order to give empirical content to economic relationships. M. Hashem Pesaran (1987). "Econometrics," '' The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics'', v. 2, p. 8 p. 8� ...

analysis. The format was popularized by MicroTSP. The databank format is used for data of a fixed annual sample frequency (annual, quarterly, monthly) and for undated data. It is supported by

TSP TSP or tsp may refer to: Medicine * Tropical spastic paraparesis, weakness due to T-lymphotropic virus infection Science and technology * Team software process, for producing software * Telecommunications service provider * .tsp, for tel ...

EViews EViews is a statistical package for Windows, used mainly for time-series oriented econometric analysis. It is developed by Quantitative Micro Software (QMS), now a part of IHS. Version 1.0 was released in March 1994, and replaced MicroTSP. The ...

, and many other

applications. Traditionally the name of the file ends with extension .db. By inspection, the databank file is seen to be an ASCII text file containing a single data series. A databank file is formatted in a linewise structure. Initial comment lines begin with a quote. For dated series, the next three lines specify the frequency, start date, and end date. (For undated series, the next two lines specify the start index and end index.) The remaining lines are data: one observation per line, or NA if missing. Closely related is th
open databank format
a modest extension and more detailed specification of the traditional databank format. A conforming reader and writer is provided b
EconPy

References

Bergen, Daniel and Jeff Miran, ''NEBR Macro history Database'', NEBR, 2001

Hall, Robert E., and Li lien, David, ''micro Tsp Version 6.5 User's Manual'', Quantitative Micro Software, 1989. Isaac, Alan G., "Open-Databank Format"

Computer file formats