Message-ID: <17185.24413.389850.992957@stat.math.ethz.ch>
Date: 2005-09-09T10:09:33Z
From: Martin Maechler
Subject: change in read.spss, package foreign?
In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050909015829.007bed60@pop.gmx.net>
>>>>> "Heinz" == Heinz Tuechler <tuechler at gmx.at>
>>>>> on Fri, 09 Sep 2005 01:58:29 +0200 writes:
Heinz> Dear All,
Heinz> it seems to me that the function read.spss of package
Heinz> foreign changed its behaviour regarding factors. I
Heinz> noted that in version 0.8-8 variables with value
Heinz> labels in SPSS were transformed in factors with the
Heinz> labels in alphabetic order.
Heinz> In version 0.8-10 they seem to be ordered preserving
Heinz> the order corresponding to their numerical codes in
Heinz> SPSS. However I could not find a description of this
Heinz> supposed change. Since the different behaviour seems
Heinz> to depend on the installed version of the
Heinz> foreign-package I don't know how to give a
Heinz> reproducible example. It also affects spss.get of
Heinz> the Hmisc-package, which is not surprising.
Heinz> I prefer the new behaviour and would like to know, if
Heinz> it will persist in future versions.
Yes, it was on purpose.
Note that the development of "foreign" is also on
svn.R-project.org, and you can easily get at its 'ChangeLog' :
https://svn.R-project.org/R-packages/trunk/foreign/ChangeLog
where you find the relevant entry at 2005-08-15 .
Regards,
Martin Maechler