[R] read.spss Error reading system-file header

[Thomas W Blackwell]

Jake  -

Very puzzling that a freshly-written copy of the file gives the
same problem.

As to your second question, my recollection is that  read.spss()
will be in package 'foreign'.  The absolute reference is the
source code itself, and this is often quite readable, whether
it's commented or not.

Ah . . . in order to see the source, you need to go back to CRAN
sometimes and download a source version, even though you have no
intention of re-compiling it yourself.  That's highly recommended
for questions of this sort.

-  tom blackwell  -  u michigan medical school  -  ann arbor  -

On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Jacob Wegelin wrote:

>
> Tom,
>
> Thanks very much for your swift reply.  I did change some of the column
> names, eliminating all names with a pound sign in them, and got the same
> problem.  I guess I could change all the column and row names.
>
> It would be nice to know what exactly read.spss needs, though!
>
> Thanks again
>
> Jake
>
> On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Thomas W Blackwell wrote:
>
> > Jake  -
> >
> > The error message and warnign message shown below say something
> > is wrong with this file's SPSS system-file header.  If you are
> > really able to open this one in SPSS, do so, change maybe a
> > column name or row name or two, and save it again under a
> > different file name.  See if  read.spss() chokes on the new
> > version too.
> >
> > Caution - I'm just guessing, here, but it's something to try.
> >
> > -  tom blackwell  -  u michigan medical school  -  ann arbor  -
> >
> > On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Jacob Wegelin wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Is there any documentation on what kind of SPSS file can and cannot be
> > > read by read.spss?  Alternatively, how can one modify or "clean" an SPSS
> > > file to make it readable by read.spss?  What properties must a *.sav file
> > > before read.spss can read it?
> > >
> > > The file in this example is 270KB, with 5 rows and 173 columns.  I have no
> > > trouble reading larger files with read.spss, so it's not merely a size
> > > problem. I have no difficulty opening the file in SPSS.  I also have no
> > > trouble getting read.spss to read a dummy SPSS file with 5 rows and 173
> > > columns, where each entry was randomly sampled from c(letters, LETTERS).
> > >
> > > > library("foreign")
> > > > junk<-read.spss("indata/z2EXvideo.sav")
> > > Error in read.spss("indata/z2EXvideo.sav") :
> > >         Error reading system-file header.
> > > In addition: Warning message:
> > > indata/z2EXvideo.sav: File layout code has unexpected value 50331648.  Value should be 2, in big-endian or little-endian format.
> > >
> > > Thanks for any information
> > >
> > > Jake Wegelin
> > >
> > > > version
> > >          _
> > > platform i386-pc-mingw32
> > > arch     i386
> > > os       mingw32
> > > system   i386, mingw32
> > > status
> > > major    1
> > > minor    8.0
> > > year     2003
> > > month    10
> > > day      08
> > > language R
> > >
> > > ______________________________________________
> > > R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> > > https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> > >
> >
>