[R] SAS "datalines" or "cards" statement equivalent in R?

[Rolf Turner]

On 8/12/2009, at 5:43 AM, Barry Rowlingson wrote:

> On Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 3:53 PM, Marshall Feldman <marsh at uri.edu>  
> wrote:
>> Regarding the various methods people have suggested, what if a  
>> typical
>> tab-delimited data line looks like:
>>
>>     SMS11000000000000001 1990 M01 688.0
>>
>> and the SAS INPUT statement is
>>
>>   INPUT survey $ 1-2 seasonal $ 3 state $ 4-5 area $ 6-10  
>> supersector $
>> 11-12 @13 industry $8. datatype $ 21-22  year period $ value  
>> footnote $ ;
>>
>> Note that most data lines have no footnote item, as in the sample.
>>
>> Here (I think) we'd want all the character variables to be read as  
>> factors,
>> possibly "year" as a date, and "value" as numeric.
>
>  Actually I'm surprised that nobody has yet said what a clearly
> bonkers thing it is to mix up your data and your analysis code in a
> single file. Now suppose you have another set of data you want to
> analyse with the same code? Are you going to create a new file and
> paste the new data in? You've now got two copies of your analysis code
> - good luck keeping corrections to that code synchronised.
>
>  This just seems like horrendously bad practice, which is one reason
> it's kludgy in R. If it was good practice, someone would surely have
> written a way to do it neatly.
>
>  Keep your data in data files, and your functions in .R function
> files. You'll thank me later.

Indeed.  The idea of keeping data and code in the same file is a symptom
of blinkered SAS orientation.  Get out of the SAS way of thinking and
get into the R way of thinking.  You'll be glad you did!

To paraphrase Eric Blair:  ``SAS-thinkers unbellyfeel R-speak.''

	cheers,

		Rolf Turner

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