[R] Cannot read XPT file using foreign package

[Dennis Fisher]

Duncan

I looked at 
	support.sas.com/techsup/technote/ts140.pdf
and it is a bit difficult to decipher.  I then replaced the string "^@" in the file contents with "!".  There is some concordance with he sample text shown in support.sas.com/techsup/technote/ts140.pdf but I don't know exactly how much concordance is expected.  The time stamp in the file is today so I assume that the file was created today.  

You asked "why [I] think this is a file that follows the format" -- I did not make that assumption; I merely attempted to read an XPT file with read.xport and it failed.

Could there be an issue with the version of SAS (which appears to be 6.06) -- they are now up to version 9 (for Windows - I don't know the version # for UNIX).

Dennis


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On Oct 4, 2013, at 4:47 PM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 13-10-04 6:50 PM, Dennis Fisher wrote:
>> OS X 10.8
>> R 3.0.1
>> foreign 0.8-55 (2013-09-02)
>> 
>> Colleagues,
>> 
>> I received a SAS XPT file that I cannot read using the foreign package.
>> The command:
>> 	read.xport(FILENAME)
>> results in the following message:
>> 	Error in lookup.xport(file) : file not in SAS transfer format
>> I am able to read the file successfully using StatTransport so it appears that the file is OK.
>> 
>> When I examine the file using "more", the first few lines look like this:
>> !04Oct13:11:15:5904Oct13:11:15:59                                                                

>> HEADER RECORD*******MEMBER  HEADER RECORD!!!!!!!000000000000000001600000000140  

>> HEADER RECORD*******DSCRPTR HEADER RECORD!!!!!!!000000000000000000000000000000  

>> SAS     SAS     SASDATA 6.06    bsd4.2  !04Oct13:11:15:5904Oct13:11:15:59                                                                

>> HEADER RECORD*******NAMESTR HEADER RECORD!!!!!!!000000000500000000000000000000  

>> !^A!^H!^ASubject Subject                                 BEST    !^L!        !
>> !^A!^H!^BPeriod  Period                                  BEST    !^L!        !^H!
>> 
>> Of course, I can use StatTransport to write the file to another format.  However, I would like to understand why the foreign package is unable to process the file.
> 
> That file doesn't follow the documented format linked to from ?read.xport.  You'll have to ask SAS why their documentation is incorrect, or ask yourself why you think this file is a file that follows that format when it doesn't.
> 
> Duncan Murdoch
> 
>