Dear All,
I installed R 2.7.0 and tried to call a dataset i had ealier own called
on R2.6.2 but i keep on getting an error:
use("maltreat.dta")
Error in fromchar(x) :
character string is not in a standard unambiguous format
Tried doing the same with R2.7.1 but i get the same error.
However if i call the same on R 2.6.2, there is no error:
use("maltreat.dta")> des()
No. of observations = 670
Variable Class Description
1 scrno integer
2 todaydate Date
3 ethnic character
4 othtribe character
5 dob Date
6 ageyrs integer
7 agemths integer
8 sex character
I cannot figure out what the problem is.
Please help me.
Kind regards,
Lazarus Mramba
Junior Statistician
P.O Box 986, 80108,
Kilifi, Kenya
Mobile No. +254721292370
Tel: +254 41 522063
Tel: +254 41 522390
(office extension : 419)
What are use() and des()? Please note the footer of this message.
(Are you using package epicalc without telling us?)
I suspect that foreign::read.dta is being used. That has argument
'convert.dates', and you could try setting it to FALSE, as the message
is
from as.Date.character() complaining about the date format.
It is likely that the difference is in the version of 'foreign' and not
in
the version of R: the posting guide asked for the output of sessionInfo()
which would have told us which versions these were.
In short, try
library(foreign)
tmp <- read.dta("maltreat.dta", convert.dates=FALSE)
str(tmp)
tmp$dob
tmp$todaydate
and if the latter two are numbers, try converting them by e.g.
as.Date(tmp$dob, origin="1960-01-01")
It would help to make the dataset available for the developers to
investigate.
On Wed, 6 Aug 2008, Lazarus Mramba wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> I installed R 2.7.0 and tried to call a dataset i had ealier own called
> on R2.6.2 but i keep on getting an error:
> use("maltreat.dta")
>
> Error in fromchar(x) :
> character string is not in a standard unambiguous format
>
> Tried doing the same with R2.7.1 but i get the same error.
>
> However if i call the same on R 2.6.2, there is no error:
>
> use("maltreat.dta")
>> des()
>
> No. of observations = 670
> Variable Class Description
> 1 scrno integer
> 2 todaydate Date
> 3 ethnic character
> 4 othtribe character
> 5 dob Date
> 6 ageyrs integer
> 7 agemths integer
> 8 sex character
>
> I cannot figure out what the problem is.
>
> Please help me.
>
>
>
> Kind regards,
> Lazarus Mramba
> Junior Statistician
> P.O Box 986, 80108,
> Kilifi, Kenya
> Mobile No. +254721292370
> Tel: +254 41 522063
> Tel: +254 41 522390
> (office extension : 419)
>
> ______________________________________________
> 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
Dear Prof Brian,
It is true that i used the epicalc package. The functions use() and
des() are from epicalc.
The problem does not occur if i use library(foreign) : tmp <-
read.dta("maltreat.dta", convert.dates=FALSE)
> sessionInfo()
R version 2.7.1 (2008-06-23)
i386-pc-mingw32
locale:
LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252;LC_CTYPE=English_United
States.1252;LC_MONETARY=English_United
States.1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=English_United States.1252
attached base packages:
[1] splines stats graphics grDevices utils datasets methods
[8] base
other attached packages:
[1] epicalc_2.7.1.2 survival_2.34-1 foreign_0.8-26
library(foreign)> tmp <- read.dta("maltreat.dta", convert.dates=FALSE)
> str(tmp)
'data.frame': 670 obs. of 43 variables:
## thanks. able to read the dataset.
However, epicalc function use() cannot call the data.
library(epicalc)> use("maltreat.dta")
Error in fromchar(x) :
character string is not in a standard unambiguous format
use("malvac.dta")
Error in fromchar(x) :
character string is not in a standard unambiguous format
## I have attached the two datasets herein
Kind regards,
Lazarus Mramba
Junior Statistician
P.O Box 986, 80108,
Kilifi, Kenya
Mobile No. +254721292370
Tel: +254 41 522063
Tel: +254 41 522390
(office extension : 419)
>>> Prof Brian Ripley <ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk> 08/06 12:38 PM
>>>
What are use() and des()? Please note the footer of this message.
(Are you using package epicalc without telling us?)
I suspect that foreign::read.dta is being used. That has argument
'convert.dates', and you could try setting it to FALSE, as the message
is
from as.Date.character() complaining about the date format.
It is likely that the difference is in the version of 'foreign' and not
in
the version of R: the posting guide asked for the output of
sessionInfo()
which would have told us which versions these were.
In short, try
library(foreign)
tmp <- read.dta("maltreat.dta", convert.dates=FALSE)
str(tmp)
tmp$dob
tmp$todaydate
and if the latter two are numbers, try converting them by e.g.
as.Date(tmp$dob, origin="1960-01-01")
It would help to make the dataset available for the developers to
investigate.
On Wed, 6 Aug 2008, Lazarus Mramba wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> I installed R 2.7.0 and tried to call a dataset i had ealier own
called> on R2.6.2 but i keep on getting an error:
> use("maltreat.dta")
>
> Error in fromchar(x) :
> character string is not in a standard unambiguous format
>
> Tried doing the same with R2.7.1 but i get the same error.
>
> However if i call the same on R 2.6.2, there is no error:
>
> use("maltreat.dta")
>> des()
>
> No. of observations = 670
> Variable Class Description
> 1 scrno integer
> 2 todaydate Date
> 3 ethnic character
> 4 othtribe character
> 5 dob Date
> 6 ageyrs integer
> 7 agemths integer
> 8 sex character
>
> I cannot figure out what the problem is.
>
> Please help me.
>
>
>
> Kind regards,
> Lazarus Mramba
> Junior Statistician
> P.O Box 986, 80108,
> Kilifi, Kenya
> Mobile No. +254721292370
> Tel: +254 41 522063
> Tel: +254 41 522390
> (office extension : 419)
>
> ______________________________________________
> 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
Your examples work for me via read.dta() and via use(), including the Date
columns, with the current foreign_0.8-28. They also work on Windows 2.7.1
with foreign_0.8-26.
As far as I can see the only relevant part of read.dta is
as.Date("1960-1-1"): you might want to try that to see if it
malfunctions.
If it does, it is possible that the problem is in your timezone setting --
the CHANGES file says
o An attempt is made (once per session) to identify the current
timezone from the Windows' Registry. If this does not work or
is incorrect, set the 'TZ' environment variable appropriately:
a list of known timezones is given in
R_HOME/share/zoneinfo/zones.tab ...
So you could start R with TZ="Africa/Nairobi" at the end of the
command
line (assuming you are physically in Kenya and your machine is set to
Kenyan time).
On Wed, 6 Aug 2008, Lazarus Mramba wrote:
> Dear Prof Brian,
>
> It is true that i used the epicalc package. The functions use() and
> des() are from epicalc.
> The problem does not occur if i use library(foreign) : tmp <-
> read.dta("maltreat.dta", convert.dates=FALSE)
>
>> sessionInfo()
> R version 2.7.1 (2008-06-23)
> i386-pc-mingw32
>
> locale:
> LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252;LC_CTYPE=English_United
> States.1252;LC_MONETARY=English_United
> States.1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=English_United States.1252
>
> attached base packages:
> [1] splines stats graphics grDevices utils datasets methods
>
> [8] base
>
> other attached packages:
> [1] epicalc_2.7.1.2 survival_2.34-1 foreign_0.8-26
>
>
> library(foreign)
>> tmp <- read.dta("maltreat.dta", convert.dates=FALSE)
>> str(tmp)
> 'data.frame': 670 obs. of 43 variables:
>
> ## thanks. able to read the dataset.
> However, epicalc function use() cannot call the data.
>
> library(epicalc)
>> use("maltreat.dta")
> Error in fromchar(x) :
> character string is not in a standard unambiguous format
>
>
> use("malvac.dta")
> Error in fromchar(x) :
> character string is not in a standard unambiguous format
>
>
> ## I have attached the two datasets herein
>
>
>
>
>
> Kind regards,
> Lazarus Mramba
> Junior Statistician
> P.O Box 986, 80108,
> Kilifi, Kenya
> Mobile No. +254721292370
> Tel: +254 41 522063
> Tel: +254 41 522390
> (office extension : 419)
>
>>>> Prof Brian Ripley <ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk> 08/06 12:38
PM >>>
> What are use() and des()? Please note the footer of this message.
> (Are you using package epicalc without telling us?)
>
> I suspect that foreign::read.dta is being used. That has argument
> 'convert.dates', and you could try setting it to FALSE, as the
message
> is
> from as.Date.character() complaining about the date format.
>
> It is likely that the difference is in the version of 'foreign' and
not
> in
> the version of R: the posting guide asked for the output of
> sessionInfo()
> which would have told us which versions these were.
>
> In short, try
>
> library(foreign)
> tmp <- read.dta("maltreat.dta", convert.dates=FALSE)
> str(tmp)
> tmp$dob
> tmp$todaydate
>
> and if the latter two are numbers, try converting them by e.g.
>
> as.Date(tmp$dob, origin="1960-01-01")
>
> It would help to make the dataset available for the developers to
> investigate.
>
> On Wed, 6 Aug 2008, Lazarus Mramba wrote:
>
>> Dear All,
>>
>> I installed R 2.7.0 and tried to call a dataset i had ealier own
> called
>> on R2.6.2 but i keep on getting an error:
>> use("maltreat.dta")
>>
>> Error in fromchar(x) :
>> character string is not in a standard unambiguous format
>>
>> Tried doing the same with R2.7.1 but i get the same error.
>>
>> However if i call the same on R 2.6.2, there is no error:
>>
>> use("maltreat.dta")
>>> des()
>>
>> No. of observations = 670
>> Variable Class Description
>> 1 scrno integer
>> 2 todaydate Date
>> 3 ethnic character
>> 4 othtribe character
>> 5 dob Date
>> 6 ageyrs integer
>> 7 agemths integer
>> 8 sex character
>>
>> I cannot figure out what the problem is.
>>
>> Please help me.
>>
>>
>>
>> Kind regards,
>> Lazarus Mramba
>> Junior Statistician
>> P.O Box 986, 80108,
>> Kilifi, Kenya
>> Mobile No. +254721292370
>> Tel: +254 41 522063
>> Tel: +254 41 522390
>> (office extension : 419)
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> 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
>
--
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