Trouble using pareto levy stable distribution software [closed]

Question

I'm using an arcane free program off the internet called "stable.exe" trying to fit a stable distribution curve to a dataset, but I'm having trouble entering the dataset file into the program. When the program asks me to input the file, I enter "stable test 1", which is the name of the dataset (a notepad document consisting of a column of 20 numbers, in the same working directory as the program). It then spits out an "error reading file" message. I've tried specifying the directory as C:\...etc...\stable test 1, and so on, to no avail. If someone has had experience with this nifty yet somewhat enigmatic program, or has fortran knowledge in general, I would appreciate your advice.

Also, the read me file for the program says that the program will not read the last number in the dataset unless I include a "carriage return" after it. Can someone explain what a "carriage return" is.

Answer 1

Do not use filenames with spaces. They are pain in any OS. The pain is somewhat lessened on Unix type OSes. Rename the file to something stabletest1.txt and then try to feed it to the program. Note that Windows sometimes do not show the file extension. So the filename might be stable test 1.txt not stable test 1. This is even more plausible since you use Notepad, which tends to add the extension .txt to any file you edit, whether you want it or not. So check the file extension, purge the spaces from its name and then try to use it.

Carriage return is simply enter at the end of the file. When editing file press enter at the end of the last line and do not write anything when the cursor is at the beginning of the new line. I would not trust Notepad however to not "clean up", i.e. delete unnecessary last line. Try using some other text editor. And take suggestion of @David, use R, or use other interfaces to this software.

Answer 2

If you want to use stable.exe, make sure to do the following:

If you have problems running the program, you may need to download the program again. (Depending on your browser settings, you may have to right click on the links and use the "Save as..." or "Save target as..." menu choices.) If you run the program under Windows 2000, XP, or 7, you will need to have write access to the directory in which you are running stable.exe.

Alternatively, you could try the command line version stablec.exe

I would probably go straight to using one of the free R packages, stabledist or fBasics, that use the same formulas as stable.exe, from Nolan 1997.

Nolan, the author of stable.exe, also sells STABLE libraries for R, Mathematica, C, Matlab, or even Excel.

---

Nolan, J. P. 1997 Numerical calculation of stable densities and distribution functions Commun. Statist.-Stochastic Models, 13(4), 759-774 (1997)