R help - Dec 2002 - read.ssd {foreign} (Reading a permanent SAS dataset into an R data frame)

I just downloaded and installed R 1.6.1 on my Windows
machine where I also run SAS.

I want to use the 'read.ssd' function so that I can
convert a permanent SAS data set into an R data frame.

I downloaded and installed the package 'foreign' on my
machine, which includes the 'read.ssd' function.

I read the instructions, and followed the example
closely in the R documentation.

C:\Program
Files\R\rw1061\library\foreign\html\read.ssd.html

When I run the first R command, in the example, on my
SAS library:
> list.files("C:\\My Documents\\SAS_Data_Sets")
I get the correct output.

When I run the second R command, in the example, 
> read.ssd("C:\\My Documents\\SAS_Data_Sets","use")
I get the following message,

'Error: couldn't find function "read.ssd"'

Why is R saying it can not find the function
'read.ssd' when I downloaded it and I see it in my
file system?

Thanks for your help,

Stephen

On Thu, 19 Dec 2002, Stephen Arthur wrote:
> I just downloaded and installed R 1.6.1 on my Windows
> machine where I also run SAS.
>
> I want to use the 'read.ssd' function so that I can
> convert a permanent SAS data set into an R data frame.
>
> I downloaded and installed the package 'foreign' on my
> machine, which includes the 'read.ssd' function.
>
> I read the instructions, and followed the example
> closely in the R documentation.
>
> C:\Program
> Files\R\rw1061\library\foreign\html\read.ssd.html
>
> When I run the first R command, in the example, on my
> SAS library:
>
> > list.files("C:\\My Documents\\SAS_Data_Sets")
>
> I get the correct output.
>
> When I run the second R command, in the example,
>
> > read.ssd("C:\\My Documents\\SAS_Data_Sets","use")
>
> I get the following message,
>
> 'Error: couldn't find function "read.ssd"'
>
> Why is R saying it can not find the function
> 'read.ssd' when I downloaded it and I see it in my
> file system?
1) Foreign shipped with R 1.6.1 for Windows, so you did not need to
download it.

2) To use a package you need to use e.g.

library(foreign)

When you have time, please do read `An Introduction to R'.

-- 
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 272860 (secr)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595