.TH VALIDATA 1 "February 3, 1987" "\(co 1980 Gary Perlman" "|STAT" "UNIX User's Manual"
.SH NAME
validata \- validate and report columnar file consistency
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B validata
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I validata
reads a file from the standard input and for each column
in its input,
reports statistics about the data type of fields
(whether a column contains alphanumeric strings, integers, real numbers,
or something else).
.I validata
also reports the maximum and minimum values of the columns;
.I validata
is useful to check data files for consistency
before input to some data analysis program
because it detects missing columns
or columns of the wrong type,
such as non-numeric input.
.SH EXAMPLE
.nf
series  1  100  |  dm  x1  RAND  "x1^.5"  |  validata
.ta .5i +.5i +.5i +.75i +.75i +.75i +.75i +.75i +1i +1i
.if t .ta .5i +.5i +.5i +.5i +.5i +.5i +.5i +.5i +.5i +.5i +.5i +.5i +.5i +.5i
Col	N	NA	alnum	alpha	int	float	other	type	min	max
1	100	0	100	0	100	100	0	int	1	100
2	100	0	0	0	0	100	0	float	0.0123	0.9836
3	100	0	10	0	10	100	0	float	1	10
.fi
.SH SEE\ ALSO
sort(1), grep(1), uniq(1), and diff(1) are also useful for checking data
.SH LIMITS
Use the -L option to determine the program limits.