R help - Oct 2010 - Problem exporting data using write.foreign

My question is about the write.foreign() command in the foreign  
package.  I use a command like the following to try and output data  
and a code file to read my data into SAS.

write.foreign(data.frame.object, datafile="filepath",  
codefile="filepath", package="SAS",
dataname="myData")

With my data set, it gives the following error:

Error in make.SAS.names(names(df), validvarname = validvarname) :
   Cannot uniquely abbreviate the variable names to 32 or fewer  
characters

I tried to write reproducible code but could not.  I'm not sure where  
to go from here.  What are the naming protocols for variables so that  
they can be exported using write.foreign()?

Thanks!

Andrew Miles

> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-
> project.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Miles
> Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 10:10 AM
> To: r-help at r-project.org
> Subject: [R] Problem exporting data using write.foreign
> 
> My question is about the write.foreign() command in the foreign
> package.  I use a command like the following to try and output data
> and a code file to read my data into SAS.
> 
> write.foreign(data.frame.object, datafile="filepath",
> codefile="filepath", package="SAS",
dataname="myData")
> 
> With my data set, it gives the following error:
> 
> Error in make.SAS.names(names(df), validvarname = validvarname) :
>    Cannot uniquely abbreviate the variable names to 32 or fewer
> characters
> 
> I tried to write reproducible code but could not.  I'm not sure where
> to go from here.  What are the naming protocols for variables so that
> they can be exported using write.foreign()?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Andrew Miles
> 
Well, the error message tells you that the names must be unique when truncated
to 32 characters.  Apparently, you have at least 2 variables that have the same
name when truncated to 32 characters.

Hope this is helpful,

Dan

Daniel J. Nordlund
Washington State Department of Social and Health Services
Planning, Performance, and Accountability
Research and Data Analysis Division
Olympia, WA 98504-5204