Seeing Red (predux)

On the FRB Z.1 Release page there is a link to Historical data. This link provides annual data filed by decade -- not the most useful form if you want to see several decades. They also link to quarterly data that goes back to the early 1950s. That's my style.

Notes on that quarterly page say

The debt growth file (gtabs.zip) contains data from 1953 forward; the data corresponds to tables D.1, D.2, and D.3 in the release.

I've been using the D3 (debt outstanding) table. So I got GTABS.

Turned out, the data went back to 1952.

I changed the filename gtab3d.prn to gtab3d.txt and inspected it with Notepad. Okay, the data looks to be delimited by SPACEs, so it should import into Excel easily. But there is gobbledygook where I need column headers.

Oh! ...What was that other note on the Historical data page?

The series code (in quotes) is at the top of each column of data.

Yes... and

Flow of Funds codes have the following elements:

a two-letter code (FA, FU, or FL), which identifies whether the series is a seasonally adjusted flow, an unadjusted flow, or a level
a nine-digit code, which represents sector; type of transaction; and type of adjustment, data source, or calculation
a one-letter code, which indicates the frequency (.q or .a).

For example, the code FA313161105.q identifies the quarterly seasonally adjusted flow (at an annual rate) for federal government Treasury issues...

An unadjusted flow is FU. I'll have to remember that.

Yeah... and

The data series in the compressed ASCII files of quarterly data are organized in the same way as in the releases and in the Flow of Funds coded tables.

Okay, I will look at the coded tables...

I got it! In Excel I can replace the ugly codes with column title text. Okay.