R help - Aug 2008 - how to import from SPSS without shortening variable names

Hello,

as I import '.sav' files from SPSS, the variable names are shortened to
8 uppercase characters:

"sex_of_therapist" will become "SEX_OF_TH"

Is there a way around this? How can I retrieve the full names?

Greets from Southern Germany,
Timo Stolz

Timo Stolz wrote:
> Hello,
>
> as I import '.sav' files from SPSS, the variable names are
shortened to
> 8 uppercase characters:
>
> "sex_of_therapist" will become "SEX_OF_TH"
>
> Is there a way around this? How can I retrieve the full names?
>
>   
Well as long as it didn't become sex_of_the_rapist...

This is actually changed in the most recent version of the foreign
package, which is contained in R 2.7.2RC:
> X <- read.spss("~/Desktop/Biobank_SPSS.sav",
to.data.frame=TRUE)
Warning message:
In read.spss("~/Desktop/Biobank_SPSS.sav", to.data.frame = TRUE) :
  ~/Desktop/Biobank_SPSS.sav: File-indicated character representation
code (1252) looks like a Windows codepage
> names(X)
 [1] "Pt_id"       "Popul"       "Age"        
"Sex"         "SKScode"
 [6] "Sys1"        "Sys2"        "Sys_pro"    
"Dia1"        "Dia2"
[11] "Dia_pro"     "MAP1"        "MAP2"       
"MAP_pro"     "MAP_p"
[16] "MAP_30_55"   "Anaesthesia" "Efedrin"    
"Efedrin1"    "Efedrin2"
[21] "Metaoxedrin" "Nr"          "ACE1"       
"ACE2"        "ACE_ID"
[26] "ACE3"        "ACE4"        "ADRA1A"     
"ADRA2A"      "ADRB1_1"
[31] "ADRB1_2"     "ADRB2_1"     "ADRB2_2"    
"ADRB2_3"     "ADRB2_4"
[36] "AGT_1"       "AGT_2"       "AGTR1"      
"GNB3"        "AGTR2"
[41] "GNAS"        "NOS3_1"      "NOS3_2"     
"NOS3_3"      "ADRB2_5"
[46] "ADRB2HA"     "ADRB2HB"     "ADRB2HP"    
"ADRB1HA"     "ADRB1HB"
[51] "ADRB1HP"     "AGTHA"       "AGTHB"      
"AGTHP"       "ACEHA"
[56] "ACEHB"       "ACEHP"       "H?jde"      
"V?gt"        "BMI"
[61] "BMIgroupA"   "BMIgroupB"   "BMIgroupC"

So try the prerelease or wait till Monday (and miss the opportunity to
have any bugs you find fixed before release).

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             ?ster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph:  (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk)              FAX: (+45) 35327907

On Tue, 19 Aug 2008, Timo Stolz wrote:
> Hello,
>
> as I import '.sav' files from SPSS, the variable names are
shortened to
> 8 uppercase characters:
>
> "sex_of_therapist" will become "SEX_OF_TH"
>
> Is there a way around this? How can I retrieve the full names?
Have you updated your 'foreign' package recently?  I think that was 
changed in 0.8-27, and 0.8-29 is current.

[sessionInfo(), which the posting guide asked you to paste in the output 
of, would have told us.]

-- 
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