1. PX File Format - Suggestions for improvments Petros Likidis, Statistics Sweden

2. All keywords in the PX file format AGGREGALLOWED ATTRIBUTE-ID ATTRIBUTE-TEXT ATTRIBUTES AUTOPEN AXIS-VERSION BASEPERIOD CELLNOTE CELLNOTEX CFPRICES CHARSET CODEPAGE CODES CONFIDENTIAL CONTACT CONTENTS CONTVARIABLE COPYRIGHT CREATION-DATE DATA DATABASE DATANOTE DATANOTECELL DATANOTESUM DATASYMBOL1 DATASYMBOL2 DATASYMBOL3 DATASYMBOL4 DATASYMBOL5 DATASYMBOL6 DATASYMBOLNIL DATASYMBOLSUM DAYADJ DECIMALS DEFAULT-GRAPH DESCRIPTION DESCRIPTIONDEFAU LT DIRECTORY-PATH DOMAIN DOUBLECOLUMN ELIMINATION FIRST-PUBLISHED HEADING HIERARCHIES HIERARCHYLEVELS HIERARCHYLEVELSO PEN HIERARCHYNAMES INFO INFOFILE KEYS LANGUAGE LANGUAGES LAST-UPDATED LINK MAP MATRIX META-ID NEXT-UPDATE NOTE NOTEX OFFICIAL- STATISTICS PARTITIONED PRECISION PRESTEXT PX-SERVER REFPERIOD ROUNDING SEASADJ SHOWDECIMALS SOURCE STOCKFA STUB SUBJECT-AREA SUBJECT-CODE SURVEY SYNONYMS TABLEID TIMEVAL TITLE UNITS UPDATE- FREQUENCY VALUENOTE VALUENOTEX VALUES VARIABLE-TYPE

3. Keywords that should be defined AGGREGALLOWED ATTRIBUTE-ID ATTRIBUTE-TEXT ATTRIBUTES AUTOPEN AXIS-VERSION BASEPERIOD CELLNOTE CELLNOTEX CFPRICES CHARSET CODEPAGE CODES CONFIDENTIAL CONTACT CONTENTS CONTVARIABLE COPYRIGHT CREATION-DATE DATA DATABASE DATANOTE DATANOTECELL DATANOTESUM DATASYMBOL1 DATASYMBOL2 DATASYMBOL3 DATASYMBOL4 DATASYMBOL5 DATASYMBOL6 DATASYMBOLNIL DATASYMBOLSUM DAYADJ DECIMALS DEFAULT-GRAPH DESCRIPTION DESCRIPTIONDEFAU LT DIRECTORY-PATH DOMAIN DOUBLECOLUMN ELIMINATION FIRST-PUBLISHED HEADING HIERARCHIES HIERARCHYLEVELS HIERARCHYLEVELSO PEN HIERARCHYNAMES INFO INFOFILE KEYS LANGUAGE LANGUAGES LAST-UPDATED LINK MAP MATRIX META-ID NEXT-UPDATE NOTE NOTEX OFFICIAL- STATISTICS PARTITIONED PRECISION PRESTEXT PX-SERVER REFPERIOD ROUNDING SEASADJ SHOWDECIMALS SOURCE STOCKFA STUB SUBJECT-AREA SUBJECT-CODE SURVEY SYNONYMS TABLEID TIMEVAL TITLE UNITS UPDATE- FREQUENCY VALUENOTE VALUENOTEX VALUES VARIABLE-TYPE

4. CODEPAGE Should be ENCODING Should be mandatory Should be the first keyword in the PX file

5. CONTACT Make it an encoded string. E.g. CONTACT=”Name:Petros Likidis,Phone:+4619176917,Mail:petros.likidis@scb.se,Web:www.scb.se”; Suggested fields Name Phone Fax Mail Webpage Description

6. CELLNOTE(X), DATANOTE, DATANOTECELL, NOTE(X), VALUENOTE(X)

7. Notes continued

10. MATRIX and TABLEID Both serve as an identifier but none of them are mandatory. Are one of the keywords redundant? The other should be mandatory.

11. UPDATE-FREQUENCY Should be restricted to a set of codes A – Annual H – Half year M – Monthly D – Daily

12. VARIABLE-TYPE Should be restricted to a set of values DIMENSION (default) TIME CONTENTS GEOGRAPHY

13. CODES Should be mandatory. Benefits A natural identifier for values Keywords would not have to be repeated in multilingual files. Drawbacks Codes have to be defined for all values.

14. New Keywords VARIABLE-CODE VARIABLE-TEXT

15. VARIABLE-CODE and VARIABLE-TEXT Should be mandatory. Benefits A natural identifier for values Keywords would not have to be repeated in multilingual files. Drawbacks PX files will no longer be able to be backwards compatible.

16. Redundant keywords AGGREGALLOWED ATTRIBUTE-ID ATTRIBUTE-TEXT ATTRIBUTES AUTOPEN AXIS-VERSION BASEPERIOD CELLNOTE CELLNOTEX CFPRICES CHARSET CODEPAGE CODES CONFIDENTIAL CONTACT CONTENTS CONTVARIABLE COPYRIGHT CREATION-DATE DATA DATABASE DATANOTE DATANOTECELL DATANOTESUM DATASYMBOL1 DATASYMBOL2 DATASYMBOL3 DATASYMBOL4 DATASYMBOL5 DATASYMBOL6 DATASYMBOLNIL DATASYMBOLSUM DAYADJ DECIMALS DEFAULT-GRAPH DESCRIPTION DESCRIPTIONDEFAU LT DIRECTORY-PATH DOMAIN DOUBLECOLUMN ELIMINATION FIRST-PUBLISHED HEADING HIERARCHIES HIERARCHYLEVELS HIERARCHYLEVELSO PEN HIERARCHYNAMES INFO INFOFILE KEYS LANGUAGE LANGUAGES LAST-UPDATED LINK MAP MATRIX META-ID NEXT-UPDATE NOTE NOTEX OFFICIAL- STATISTICS PARTITIONED PRECISION PRESTEXT PX-SERVER REFPERIOD ROUNDING SEASADJ SHOWDECIMALS SOURCE STOCKFA STUB SUBJECT-AREA SUBJECT-CODE SURVEY SYNONYMS TABLEID TIMEVAL TITLE UNITS UPDATE- FREQUENCY VALUENOTE VALUENOTEX VALUES VARIABLE-TYPE

17. Keywords that bother me AUTOPEN CHARSET CONFIDENTIAL DATABASE DEFAULT-GRAPH DIRECTORY-PATH DOUBLECOLUMN PARTITIONED PX-SERVER SURVEY TIMEVAL