# Databank format

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{{Short description|File format for economic time series data}}
{{confusing|date=March 2009}}

A [file format](/source/file_format) is a procedure to encode information for storage in a computer file.
The '''databank '''format is an [ASCII](/source/ASCII) file format for [time series](/source/time_series) [econometric](/source/Econometrics) analysis. The format was popularized by [MicroTSP](/source/EViews).

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](/source/TSP_(econometrics_software)), [EViews](/source/EViews), and many other [econometric](/source/econometrics) 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 the [https://web.archive.org/web/20090312015516/http://econpy.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/pytrix/opendatabank.txt open databank format]: a modest extension and more detailed 
specification of the traditional databank format. A conforming reader and writer is provided by [http://code.google.com/p/econpy/ EconPy].

==References==

Bergen, Daniel and Jeff Miran, ''NEBR Macro history Database'', NEBR, 2001.
[http://www.nber.org/databases/macrohistory/contents/index.html]

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", [http://www.american.edu/econ/pytrix/opendatabank.htm]

Category:Computer file formats

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Databank format](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Databank_format) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Databank_format?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.