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 T M C posted on Friday, March 21, 2014 - 5:45 pm
Hi,
I am trying to run an EFA and I am getting the following error message:
*** ERROR
The length of the data field exceeds the 40-character limit for free-formatted
data. Error at record #: 1, field #: 10
*** ERROR
The number of observations is 0. Check your data and format statement.
Data file: pd_group.dat

I'm not sure how to correct this problem because I don't believe the data field exceeds the 40-character limit. And, I don't understand the second part of the error message because I do not have a format statement; I didn't think one was required. My syntax is below. Thanks for your help. TMC

TITLE: EFA Scale
DATA: FILE IS pd_group.dat;
VARIABLE:
NAMES ARE ID Age Gender Edu Omit Y1-Y50 Group;
USEOBSERVATIONS ARE GROUP 0;
USEVARIABLES ARE Y1-Y50;
CATEGORICAL ARE Y1-Y50;
MISSING ARE *;
ANALYSIS:
TYPE = EFA 2 8;
ESTIMATOR = WLSMV; ! Mplus default
ITERATIONS = 1000;
ROTATION = GEOMIN; ! Mplus default
OUTPUT:
SAMP RES STDY MOD FSDET;
 Linda K. Muthen posted on Saturday, March 22, 2014 - 6:24 am
It sounds like you may be reading a formatted data set without a FORMAT statement. Open the data set and see if there are spaces, commas, or tabs between the variables. If not, you need a FORMAT statement. If this does not help, please send the output and data set along with your license number to support@statmodel.com.
 kristin grham posted on Saturday, December 29, 2018 - 7:32 pm
Hi,

I'm having the same problem. I used stata2Mplus. I'm trying to do a basic analysis to start. I have checked my file and there are no symbols or variable names, data is free form (numbers are separated by a comma and a space). This is a common problem for me and I have frequently wasted many hours and have still not worked out why sometimes it runs and others it does not.
Here is the output I am getting today:
data: file is C:\Users\k\Documents\x.dta.inp;
Variable:
Names are stid etc;
Missing are all (-9999) ;
auxiliary = stid;
usevariables are stid etc;
Analysis: type=basic;

*** ERROR
The number of observations is 0. Check your data and format statement.
Data file: C:\Users\k\Documents\x.dta.inp
*** ERROR
Invalid symbol in data file:
"Title:" at record #: 1, field #: 1

The first line of my data is:
10000044,1,15,26,0,26.89,0,0,0,1,0,0

Thank you
 Linda K. Muthen posted on Sunday, December 30, 2018 - 6:51 am
The file option should specify the name of the file that contains the data. It sounds like x.dta.inp contains the input. The word Title: is found in this file not numbers.
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