R help - Apr 2008 - import user-defined missings

Hi,

How can I import user-defined missings from Spss?

It works for me to import spss datasets via library(foreign) with read.spss or
via library Hmisc by (spss.get).
But no matter which way I do import the data, user-defined missings from Spss
are always lost.
(it makes no difference if  there are a single value, a range, or any
combination of them. They are always ignored).
Is there any way in R to find out if any value was user-defined missing in Spss
or not?
Even to keep the information as an attribute would suit me fine, or to keep them
as a string character like "miss" would be even better.
To transform them into "NA" as the sysmis data from Spss is
transformed automatically, would be an other alternative.

Unfortunately I don't know if any of these options are possible. Could you
help me out?

Many thanks.
Christine Christmann

--

You would need to study the source code and make appropriate changes. Had 
you supplied an example (see the footer of this message), some kind soul 
might have been prepared to make a patch for you.

On Fri, 11 Apr 2008, toater at gmx.net wrote:
> Hi,
>
> How can I import user-defined missings from Spss?
>
> It works for me to import spss datasets via library(foreign) with read.spss
or via library Hmisc by (spss.get).
> But no matter which way I do import the data, user-defined missings from
Spss are always lost.
> (it makes no difference if  there are a single value, a range, or any
combination of them. They are always ignored).
> Is there any way in R to find out if any value was user-defined missing in
Spss or not?
> Even to keep the information as an attribute would suit me fine, or to keep
them as a string character like "miss" would be even better.
> To transform them into "NA" as the sysmis data from Spss is
transformed automatically, would be an other alternative.
>
> Unfortunately I don't know if any of these options are possible. Could
you help me out?
>
> Many thanks.
> Christine Christmann
>
> --
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> 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.
>
-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595