ENH: Add StataWriter 118 for unicode support (#30285)

Add StataWriter with unicode support

Co-authored-by: Tom Augspurger <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: jbrockmendel <[email protected]>

Author: 3 people

doc/source/whatsnew/v1.0.0.rst

@@ -221,8 +221,8 @@ Other enhancements
 - DataFrame constructor preserve `ExtensionArray` dtype with `ExtensionArray` (:issue:`11363`)
 - :meth:`DataFrame.sort_values` and :meth:`Series.sort_values` have gained ``ignore_index`` keyword to be able to reset index after sorting (:issue:`30114`)
 - :meth:`DataFrame.to_markdown` and :meth:`Series.to_markdown` added (:issue:`11052`)
-
 - :meth:`DataFrame.drop_duplicates` has gained ``ignore_index`` keyword to reset index (:issue:`30114`)
+- Added new writer for exporting Stata dta files in version 118, ``StataWriter118``.  This format supports exporting strings containing Unicode characters (:issue:`23573`)
 
 Build Changes
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^

pandas/core/frame.py

@@ -1929,14 +1929,17 @@ def to_stata(
         >>> df.to_stata('animals.dta')  # doctest: +SKIP
         """
         kwargs = {}
-        if version not in (114, 117):
-            raise ValueError("Only formats 114 and 117 supported.")
+        if version not in (114, 117, 118):
+            raise ValueError("Only formats 114, 117 and 118 are supported.")
         if version == 114:
             if convert_strl is not None:
-                raise ValueError("strl support is only available when using format 117")
+                raise ValueError("strl is not supported in format 114")
             from pandas.io.stata import StataWriter as statawriter
         else:
-            from pandas.io.stata import StataWriter117 as statawriter
+            if version == 117:
+                from pandas.io.stata import StataWriter117 as statawriter
+            else:
+                from pandas.io.stata import StataWriter118 as statawriter
 
             kwargs["convert_strl"] = convert_strl