When READing a dataset in Analysis, the program checks all dates in the dataset for 'valid' dates. For example, on reading a dataset DATA.REC, the following message is displayed:

. Read Loading data C:\TEST\DATA.REC, please wait.. invalid year 1000, month 1, day 17 Error field DLOPV record: 1401 invalid year 5001, month 6, day 18 invalid year 200, month 1, day 16 invalid year 199, month 8, day 8 invalid year 200, month 2, day 2 invalid year 2200, month 12, day 3 invalid year 202, month 12, day 10 invalid year 202, month 12, day 10 invalid year 200, month 12, day 4 invalid year 200, month 12, day 4 invalid year 202, month 12, day 19 invalid year 603, month 5, day 24 invalid year 603, month 6, day 24 invalid year 199, month 1, day 15 invalid year 203, month 8, day 23 invalid year 203, month 8, day 23 invalid year 993, month 1, day 1 invalid year 199, month 9, day 19 invalid year 802, month 1, day 17 invalid year 199, month 4, day 18 invalid year 996, month 7, day 17 invalid year 206, month 7, day 31 invalid year 200, month 5, day 11 Errors reading data File name : C:\TEST\DATA.REC Fields: 222 Total records: 10460 Valid records: 10450 Excluded records: 10

I have several concerns about this approach. 1. Most important, records with 'invalid' dates are excluded from analysis (10 in this example). The fact that the 'invalid' dates are likely to be incorrect is no reason to not be able to analyse the records. 2. READing a large dataset with many dates can be a very slow process. 3. The output given by Analysis (as shown above) is not very useful. Neither record numbers nor variable names are identified.

I would like to suggest: a. That dates are not checked at all during the READ process. The analyst can look for incorrect dates in Analysis, relevant to the content of the data. OR b. That the user can specify whether to check the dates or not on READing a dataset. OR c. That, if neither a. nor b. is an option, more detail about the 'invalid' dates (record number, variable name) is provided so that they can be edited.

Annemieke van Middelkoop Pretoria, South Africa