read.spss              package:foreign              R Documentation

Read an SPSS data file

Description:

     'read.spss' reads a file stored by the SPSS 'save' and 'export'
     commands and returns a list.

Usage:

     read.spss(file, use.value.labels=TRUE, to.data.frame=FALSE,
               max.value.labels=Inf)

Arguments:

    file: character variable with the name of the file to read.

use.value.labels: Convert variables with value labels into R factors
          with those levels?

to.data.frame: return a data frame?

max.value.labels: Only variables with at most this many unique values
          will be converted to factors

Details:

     This uses modified code from the PSPP project for reading the SPSS
     formats.

     Occasionally in SPSS value labels will be added to some values of
     a continuous variable (eg to distinguish different types of
     missing data), and you will not want these variables converted to
     factors. By setting 'max.val.labels' you can specify that
     variables with a large number of distinct values are not converted
     to factors even if they have value labels. The value labels are
     then returned in the '"value.labels"' attribute of the variable.

     If SPSS variable labels are present, they are returned as the
     '"variable.labels"' attribute of the answer.

     Fixed length strings (including value labels) are padded on the
     right with spaces by SPSS, and so are read that way by R.  See the
     examples for 'sub' for ways to remove trailing spaces.

Value:

     A list (or data frame) with one component for each variable in the
     saved data set.

Author(s):

     Saikat DebRoy

Examples:

     ## Not run: 
     read.spss("datafile")
     ## don't convert value labels to factor levels
     read.spss("datafile",use.value.labels=FALSE)
     ## convert value labels to factors for variables with at most
     ## ten distinct values.
     read.spss("datafile",max.val.labels=10)
     ## End(Not run)

