Dear Nina:
At risk of answering something you actually didn't ask:
You have a questionnaire on paper and in EpiData (*.QES), say with three fields:
id Identifier __ sex Respondent's sex # age Respondent's age in years ###
You create a data file from it (*.REC) and may or may not add some Checks (*.CHK) to it. If the CHK file does not require that every field must have a value (MUSTENTER), EpiData will still not allow you during data entry to enter an entirely empty record, but it will be enough if at least one field has a value So, if you put not constraints on the first "line" (I presume that you mean the first field with that), there is no problem for EpiData to accept that. In the specific example above, it would of course be a shame because it is the identifier and missing that one, there will be trouble to match latter the electronic record to your paper record if you would like to complete the record if data become available later.
If this is not what you asked for, it might be best to circumvent the list, and you send me to TBRieder@tbrieder.org your actual EpiData files so that I may see better what it is about.
Best regards,
Hans
On 20:59, epidata-list@lists.umanitoba.ca wrote:
Dear Hans,
thank you so much in advance. Apologies for being so unspecific, I am trying to describe the problem properly now. What I meant with "newly established table" is a questionnaire form which does not contain data yet. When starting with the data entry the problem occured, though it was only recognized when viewing the data after entering several individual records. The problem is that the very first line contains absolutely no data (as far as I can see). In my mind this could not be possible with EpiData and now I am trying to find the reason behind the phenomenon. I hope this clarifies my situation.
Thanks a lot in advance, many greetings from Germany, Nina