Problem Reading SPlus Dump Into R - Spaces Embedded in Data

Fri, Dec 30, 2005 2:01 AM

allan miller <amiller at a2software.com> writes:

Peter Dalgaard wrote:

allan miller <amiller at a2software.com> writes:

Hello,

I'm trying to source() an SPlus 6.x file created using dump(...,
oldStyle=T) into R (version 2.01) as using the following
instructions:

*If you have access to S-PLUS, it is usually more reliable to
|dump| the object(s) in S-PLUS and |source| the dumpfile in R. For
S-PLUS 5.x and 6.x you may need to use |dump(..., oldStyle=T)|,
and to read in very large objects it may be preferable to use the
dumpfile as a batch script rather than use the |source| function.*

(from "R Data Import/Export," pg. 15)

An example:

source("testdump")

Error in parse(file, n, text, prompt) : syntax error on line 1895

where the data on line 1895 - and other lines causing this - have
embedded spaces, such as the following:


[line 1895]  Johnson Partners LLC


I can't seem to find any options for either the SPlus dump, or R
source(), that relate to this problem.  Any suggestions for how to
either dump or source files containing data with embedded spaces?

A bit more context might be helpful. What's in lines surrounding 1895?
Can you show a simple S-PLUS object displaying the behaviour? What
happens if you dput() the object? Will S-PLUS itself restore the
file?

Unfortunately, I don't have access to S-PLUS :'( , the S-PLUS file
dump was provided to me to load in R.  Here are the lines in the
S-PLUS dump surrounding 1895:

1892 .Label
   1893 character
   1894 1
   1895 Johnson Partners LLC
   1896 class
   1897 character
   1898 1
   1899 factor
   1900 Protocol

The problem is with the embedded spaces (whitespace?) characters in
1895.  If I remove the spaces, i.e., change it to:

JohnsonPartnersLLC

the line is successfully loaded, and the next error that comes up is
another Label with embedded spaces.

Thanks for your help.

As I suspected, your data are not in the format that you thought they
were. 

turmalin:~/>Splus
S-PLUS : Copyright (c) 1988, 2003 Insightful Corp.
S : Copyright Lucent Technologies, Inc.
Version 6.2.1  for Linux 2.4.18 : 2003
Working data will be in /home/bs/pd/MySwork

[1] "testfile"

[1]+  Stopped                 Splus
turmalin:~/>cat testfile
"x" <-
"Johnson Partners LLC"

turmalin:~/>fg
Splus

[1]+  Stopped                 Splus
turmalin:~/>cat test2
## Dump S Version 4 Dump ##
x
character
character
1
Johnson Partners LLC


....

[2]+  Stopped                 Splus
turmalin:~/>cat dumpdata
x
character
1
Johnson Partners LLC


So what you have looks like the oldStyle (? - check line 1) data.dump()
format, which is quite different from dump().

data.restore() from the foreign package can read those if they contain
only basic data objects. For the oldStyle=F format, you seem to be out
of luck.

(And BTW, R will _parse_ almost any file consisting of lines with just a
single word or a numeric constant. That doesn't mean it can do
anything sensible with it...)

O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             ??ster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark          Ph:  (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk)                  FAX: (+45) 35327907

Problem Reading SPlus Dump Into R - Spaces Embedded in Data

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