Hello R folk
I have an xpt file which I have been trying to open into R in R studio
On the net I found guidance which says that I need packages Hmisc and SASxport
which I have successfully loaded.
I had also found some code which says that this would allow me to read the xpt
file into R:
library(SASxport)
data(Alfalfa)
lookup.xport("test.xpt")
Alfalfa<-read.xport("test.xpt")
I have set the directory correctly as far as I am aware, but when I tried to run
this code I got the following error messages:
> lookup.xport("test.xpt")
Error in lookup.xport.inner(file) : file not in SAS transfer
format> Alfalfa<-read.xport("test.xpt")
Error in read.xport("test.xpt") :
The specified file does not start with a SAS xport file header!
I neither know what the file being not in SAS transfer format means, nor what
not starting with an SAS xport file header means either...
If anyone can explain how I can read this xpt file into R I'd be v grateful
Thanks Nick Wray
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> On Apr 13, 2018, at 10:01 AM, WRAY NICHOLAS via R-help <r-help at r-project.org> wrote: > > Hello R folk > > I have an xpt file which I have been trying to open into R in R studio > > On the net I found guidance which says that I need packages Hmisc and SASxport which I have successfully loaded. > > I had also found some code which says that this would allow me to read the xpt file into R: > > library(SASxport) > data(Alfalfa) > lookup.xport("test.xpt") > Alfalfa<-read.xport("test.xpt") > > I have set the directory correctly as far as I am aware, but when I tried to run this code I got the following error messages: > >> lookup.xport("test.xpt") > Error in lookup.xport.inner(file) : file not in SAS transfer format >> Alfalfa<-read.xport("test.xpt") > Error in read.xport("test.xpt") : > The specified file does not start with a SAS xport file header! > > I neither know what the file being not in SAS transfer format means, nor what not starting with an SAS xport file header means either...The "export" or "transfer format from SA is supposed to make reading data less difficult and standardized. This is what a header from the version used by the NHANES releases (that's all one line): HEADER RECORD*******LIBRARY HEADER RECORD!!!!!!!000000000000000000000000000000 SAS SAS SASLIB 9.2 XP_PRO 16SEP09:09:39:2516SEP09:09:39:25 HEADER RECORD*******MEMBER HEADER RECORD!!!!!!!000000000000000001600000000140 HEADER RECORD*******DSCRPTR HEADER RECORD!!!!!!!000000000000000000000000000000 SAS DEMO SASDATA 9.2 XP_PRO 16SEP09:09:39:2516SEP09:09:39:25 HEADER RECORD*******NAMESTR HEADER RECORD!!!!!!!000000014400000000000000000000 SEQN Respondent sequence number You can look at the file with a text editor. There is a read.xport function in the foreign package and I think most people would have chosen that one as a first attemp. It's part of the standard R distribution. It refers you to https://support.sas.com/techsup/technote/ts140.pdf for details on the format. -- David.> If anyone can explain how I can read this xpt file into R I'd be v grateful > > Thanks Nick Wray > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.David Winsemius Alameda, CA, USA 'Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.' -Gehm's Corollary to Clarke's Third Law
That's what he tried, but the bottom line is that just because something is called foo.xpt there is no guarantee that it actually is a SAS XPORT file. Firefox plugins use the same extension but it could really be anything - naming conventions are just that: conventions. So dig deeper and find out what the file really is (or was supposed to be). -pd> On 14 Apr 2018, at 00:18 , David Winsemius <dwinsemius at comcast.net> wrote: > > There is a read.xport function in the foreign package and I think most people would have chosen that one as a first attemp. It's part of the standard R distribution. It refers you to https://support.sas.com/techsup/technote/ts140.pdf for details on the format.-- Peter Dalgaard, Professor, Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark Phone: (+45)38153501 Office: A 4.23 Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com
-------- Original Message ----------
From: WRAY NICHOLAS <nicholas.wray at ntlworld.com>
To: peter dalgaard <pdalgd at gmail.com>
Date: 14 April 2018 at 20:18
Subject: Re: [R] Reading xpt files into R
Well yesterday I'd downloaded the "foreign" package and tried to
open the xpt file using that:
library(foreign)
read.xport("test.xpt")
I got the following error and warning messages:
> read.xport("test.xpt")
Error in read.xport("test.xpt") :
The specified file does not start with a SAS xport file header!
In addition: Warning message:
In readBin(file, what = character(0), n = 1, size = nchar(xport.file.header, :
null terminator not found: breaking string at 10000 bytes
I can open the xpt using wordpad and there is a header but it seems to be just
text. I really don't know what constitutes an "
SAS xport file header"
Nick
On 14 April 2018 at 10:32 peter dalgaard <pdalgd at gmail.com> wrote:
That's what he tried, but the bottom line is that just because something is
called foo.xpt there is no guarantee that it actually is a SAS XPORT file.
Firefox plugins use the same extension but it could really be anything - naming
conventions are just that: conventions.
So dig deeper and find out what the file really is (or was supposed to be).
-pd
>
> On 14 Apr 2018, at 00:18 , David Winsemius <dwinsemius at
comcast.net> wrote:
>
> There is a read.xport function in the foreign package and I
think most people would have chosen that one as a first attemp. It's part of
the standard R distribution. It refers you to
https://support.sas.com/techsup/technote/ts140.pdf for details on the format.
>
>
--
Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
Phone: (+45)38153501
Office: A 4.23
Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com
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Does read.xport read both version 5 and version 8 xpt files? This link to the Library of Congress can get you started on how to interpret the header. (It states that Version 8 was introduced in 2012 but was not in wide use as of early 2017.) https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd000464.shtml Bill Dunlap TIBCO Software wdunlap tibco.com On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 12:18 PM, WRAY NICHOLAS via R-help < r-help at r-project.org> wrote:> > -------- Original Message ---------- > From: WRAY NICHOLAS <nicholas.wray at ntlworld.com> > To: peter dalgaard <pdalgd at gmail.com> > Date: 14 April 2018 at 20:18 > Subject: Re: [R] Reading xpt files into R > > > Well yesterday I'd downloaded the "foreign" package and tried to open the > xpt file using that: > > library(foreign) > read.xport("test.xpt") > > I got the following error and warning messages: > > > read.xport("test.xpt") > Error in read.xport("test.xpt") : > The specified file does not start with a SAS xport file header! > In addition: Warning message: > In readBin(file, what = character(0), n = 1, size > nchar(xport.file.header, : > null terminator not found: breaking string at 10000 bytes > > I can open the xpt using wordpad and there is a header but it seems to be > just text. I really don't know what constitutes an " > SAS xport file header" > > Nick > > > > On 14 April 2018 at 10:32 peter dalgaard <pdalgd at gmail.com> wrote: > > That's what he tried, but the bottom line is that just because something > is called foo.xpt there is no guarantee that it actually is a SAS XPORT > file. Firefox plugins use the same extension but it could really be > anything - naming conventions are just that: conventions. > > So dig deeper and find out what the file really is (or was supposed to be). > > -pd > > > > > On 14 Apr 2018, at 00:18 , David Winsemius < > dwinsemius at comcast.net> wrote: > > > > There is a read.xport function in the foreign package and I > think most people would have chosen that one as a first attemp. It's part > of the standard R distribution. It refers you to https://support.sas.com/ > techsup/technote/ts140.pdf for details on the format. > > > > > -- > Peter Dalgaard, Professor, > Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School > Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark > Phone: (+45)38153501 > Office: A 4.23 > Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com > > > > > > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/ > posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. >[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> On Apr 14, 2018, at 12:18 PM, WRAY NICHOLAS via R-help <r-help at r-project.org> wrote: > > > -------- Original Message ---------- > From: WRAY NICHOLAS <nicholas.wray at ntlworld.com> > To: peter dalgaard <pdalgd at gmail.com> > Date: 14 April 2018 at 20:18 > Subject: Re: [R] Reading xpt files into R > > > Well yesterday I'd downloaded the "foreign" package and tried to open the xpt file using that: > > library(foreign) > read.xport("test.xpt") > > I got the following error and warning messages: > >> read.xport("test.xpt") > Error in read.xport("test.xpt") : > The specified file does not start with a SAS xport file header! > In addition: Warning message: > In readBin(file, what = character(0), n = 1, size = nchar(xport.file.header, : > null terminator not found: breaking string at 10000 bytes > > I can open the xpt using wordpad and there is a header but it seems to be just text. I really don't know what constitutes an " > SAS xport file header"I'm not sure why Peter deleted my copy of a sample of a SAS xport header that I took from an NHANES data distribution. He seemed to think I was confused about the function you had been using. The reason I mentioned that `read.xport` was from the 'foreign' package is that one generally loads that package to make the function available, while it appears you were using a different package, SASxport, and I didn't know whether that package had a function which had the same name as the one from pkg-foreign, and if it did whether it might depend on the read.xport function in foreign. You should not need to download the 'foreign' package, since it ships with every distribution of R. These are the arguments accepted by that function: SASxport::read.xport function (file, force.integer = TRUE, formats = NULL, name.chars = NULL, names.tolower = FALSE, keep = NULL, drop = NULL, as.is = 0.95, verbose = FALSE, as.list = FALSE, include.formats = FALSE) When I look at the SASxport::read.xport function code, it is in fact, _not_ the same function. But it does have the R statement about what it thinks qualifies as a SAS xprot file: xport.file.header <- "HEADER RECORD*******LIBRARY HEADER RECORD!!!!!!!000000000000000000000000000000 " It checks to see whether the file starts with that string. This is what appeared in my first message:> > The "export" or "transfer format from SA is supposed to make reading data less difficult and standardized. This is what a header from the version used by the NHANES releases (that's all one line): > > HEADER RECORD*******LIBRARY HEADER RECORD!!!!!!!000000000000000000000000000000 SAS SAS SASLIB 9.2 XP_PRO 16SEP09:09:39:2516SEP09:09:39:25 HEADER RECORD*******MEMBER HEADER RECORD!!!!!!!000000000000000001600000000140 HEADER RECORD*******DSCRPTR HEADER RECORD!!!!!!!000000000000000000000000000000 SAS DEMO SASDATA 9.2 XP_PRO 16SEP09:09:39:2516SEP09:09:39:25 HEADER RECORD*******NAMESTR HEADER RECORD!!!!!!!000000014400000000000000000000 SEQN Respondent sequence numberSo the header is text, but it is text with a particular structure. If your file doesn't have that structure, then it's not a SAS xport file. The .xpt extension is also used for Mozilla Firefox plugins.> > Nick > > > > On 14 April 2018 at 10:32 peter dalgaard <pdalgd at gmail.com> wrote: > > That's what he tried,Actually not, Peter. Wray was using a function of the same name, but not from pkg-foreign. Perhaps he was following the tutorial at: http://www.phusewiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Open_XPT_File_with_R> but the bottom line is that just because something is called foo.xpt there is no guarantee that it actually is a SAS XPORT file. Firefox plugins use the same extension but it could really be anything - naming conventions are just that: conventions. > > So dig deeper and find out what the file really is (or was supposed to be).Peter and I agree agree on that advice.> > -pd > >> >> On 14 Apr 2018, at 00:18 , David Winsemius <dwinsemius at comcast.net> wrote: >> >> There is a read.xport function in the foreign package and I think most people would have chosen that one as a first attemp. It's part of the standard R distribution. It refers you to https://support.sas.com/techsup/technote/ts140.pdf for details on the format. >-- David Winsemius Alameda, CA, USA 'Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.' -Gehm's Corollary to Clarke's Third Law