R help - Apr 2002 - Problem with read.xport() from foreign package

I have found that data imported from SAS using read.xport() in 
package foreign (installed recently) does not match the original 
data, when the data consists of character strings that are only one 
character long.

Here is an example.

---- SAS commands to create the data ----
options nocenter;
data foo;
     a='a';
     b='bb';
     length c d $2;
     c='c';
     d=' d';
     x=3.1;
     output;
run;
proc print data=foo;
run;

libname xpt xport 'xpt.foo';
proc copy in=work out=xpt memtype=data;
   select foo;
run;

proc contents data=foo;
run;


---------- output from proc print -------
OBS    A    B     C    D     X

  1     a    bb    c    d    3.1


--------- in R -------------
>  foo <- read.xport('xpt.foo')
>
>  foo
   A  B C  D   X
1   bb    d 3.1


note that neither foo$A nor foo$C has any data.

--------- version information ---------
NOTE: SAS (r) Proprietary Software Release 6.12  TS020
>  version
          _
platform sparc-sun-solaris2.7
arch     sparc
os       solaris2.7
system   sparc, solaris2.7
status
major    1
minor    4.1
year     2002
month    01
day      30
language R

>  tmp <- installed.packages()
>  tmp[tmp[,1]=='foreign',,drop=FALSE]
      Package   LibPath                                       Version 
Priority      Bundle Depends
[1,] "foreign" "/erd/statistic/apps/R/R-1.4.1/lib/R/library"
"0.4-9"

-Don
-- 
--------------------------------------
Don MacQueen
Environmental Protection Department
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Livermore, CA, USA
--------------------------------------
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Don MacQueen <macq at llnl.gov> writes:
> I have found that data imported from SAS using read.xport() in package
> foreign (installed recently) does not match the original data, when
> the data consists of character strings that are only one character
> long.
This sounds very much like a bug that got fixed a short while ago. You
might try updating to the latest version.

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Blegdamsvej 3  
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     2200 Cph. N   
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph: (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk)             FAX: (+45) 35327907
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r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html
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(in the "body", not the subject !)  To: r-help-request at
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