[R] Problem reading a particular file with read.spss()

[Prof Brian Ripley]

It works for me, on Windows with that version of foreign.  I also tried 
under Linux with valgrind, and nothing untoward was reported.  The 
warnings are

Warning messages:
1: In read.spss("mySPSSfile.sav") :
   mySPSSfile.sav: File-indicated character representation code (1252) 
looks like a Windows codepage
2: In read.spss("mySPSSfile.sav") :
   mySPSSfile.sav: Unrecognized record type 7, subtype 18 encountered in 
system file

The first is innocuous for you (given your locale), and the second 
indicated that there is info that we don't know about (SPSS 16.x is not 
common).

On Tue, 29 Jul 2008, Chuck Cleland wrote:

> Hi All:
>  I have a seemingly typical SPSS data file with 219 rows and 486 variables. 
> When I attempt to read this file into R with read.spss() in the foreign 
> package, I consistently get a "crash".  This is the sequence of events:
>
>> library(foreign)
>> sessionInfo()
> R version 2.7.1 Patched (2008-07-24 r46120)
> 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] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base
>
> other attached packages:
> [1] foreign_0.8-27
>
>> read.spss("c:/chuck/mySPSSfile.sav")
>
> "R for Windows GUI front-end has encountered a problem and needs to close. 
> We are sorry for the inconvenience."
>
>  It get a similar result trying to load the file under Rterm.exe.  The file 
> opens without any trouble in SPSS version 16.0.2 (April 10, 2008).  For 
> anyone willing to investigate, I placed a copy of the SPSS file here:
>
> http://www.chuckcleland.net/mySPSSfile.sav
>
>  I would be grateful if someone could help to figure out why this file 
> causes a problem.
>
> thanks,
>
> Chuck
>
> -- 
> Chuck Cleland, Ph.D.
> NDRI, Inc. (www.ndri.org)
> 71 West 23rd Street, 8th floor
> New York, NY 10010
> tel: (212) 845-4495 (Tu, Th)
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>
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>

-- 
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