Triple S Data File (.SSS)

Triple S (.SSS) is an open-source standard developed for survey data. The format typically consists of two files:

• One file that contains all the metadata. This file is an XML file, with the extension of .SSS. See

  http://www.triple-s.org/ for more detail about the file format.

• A second file that contains the raw data, which is either a fixed format or CSV file.

Additional files are included if the data contains multiple hierarchically-related files (e.g., one file containing variables describing characteristics of households, and a second data file containing variables describing characteristics of people)

Various versions are available, and it's important to check versions when using this format. For example, while the most recent version is 3.0, Q and Displayr support version 2.1.

The main benefit of the Triple-S format over the SPSS Data File is that it contains more metadata about different types of questions, and usually has a clearer distinction between when questions were not asked versus when they were not seen.