R and SAS proc format

Dear all, Is there an R equivalent to SAS's proc format?

Best regards

J. Lamack

Dear all, Is there an R equivalent to SAS's proc format?

Best regards

J. Lamack

Dear all, Is there an R equivalent to SAS's proc
format?

The down side to R's factor solution: 
The numerical values of factors are always 1 to number of levels. Thus, it
can be tough and requires great care to work with studies that have both
numerical values different from this and value labels. This situation is
currently not well-supported by R.

Regards, Ulrike

P.S.: I fully agree with Frank regarding the annoyance one sometimes
encounters with formats in SAS! 


lamack lamack wrote:

Dear all, Is there an R equivalent to SAS's proc format?

Best regards

J. Lamack

--- lamack lamack <lamac_k at hotmail.com> wrote:

Dear all, Is there an R equivalent to SAS's proc
format?

What does the SAS PROC FORMAT do?

The down side to R's factor solution: 

The numerical values of factors are always 1 to number of levels. Thus, it

can be tough and requires great care to work with studies that have both

numerical values different from this and value labels. This situation is

currently not well-supported by R.

Regards, Ulrike

P.S.: I fully agree with Frank regarding the annoyance one sometimes

encounters with formats in SAS! 

 > You can add an attribute to a variable.  In the sas.get function in the
 > Hmisc package for example, when importing SAS variables that have PROC
 > FORMAT value labels, an attribute 'sas.codes' keeps the original codes;
 > these can be retrieved using sas.codes(variable name).  This could be
 > done outside the SAS import context also.
 >
 > Frank
 > --
 > Frank E Harrell Jr   Professor and Chair           School of Medicine
 >                       Department of Biostatistics   Vanderbilt 

University

Frank,

are these attributes preserved when merging or subsetting a data frame?
Are they used in R packages other than Hmisc and Design (e.g. in a 
simple table request)?

If this is the case, my wishlist items 8658 and 8659 
(http://bugs.r-project.org/cgi-bin/R/wishlist?id=8658;user=guest, 
http://bugs.r-project.org/cgi-bin/R/wishlist?id=8659;user=guest) can be 
closed.
Otherwise, I maintain the opinion that there are workarounds but that R 
is not satisfactorily able to handle this type of data.

Regards, Ulrike


*------- End of Original Message -------*

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Kane" <jrkrideau at yahoo.ca>
To: "lamack lamack" <lamac_k at hotmail.com>; <R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch>
Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2007 2:13 PM
Subject: Re: [R] R and SAS proc format


  

--- lamack lamack <lamac_k at hotmail.com> wrote:

    

Dear all, Is there an R equivalent to SAS's proc
format?
      

What does the SAS PROC FORMAT do?
    

It formats or reformats data in the SAS system.
  

It looks this:

    proc format; value kanefmt 1='A' 2='B' 3='C' 4='X' 5='Throw me 
out';
    data temp; do i=1 to 10; kanevar=put(i,kanefmt.); output; end;
    proc print; run;

And produces this:

Obs     i      kanevar
  1     1    A
  2     2    B
  3     3    C
  4     4    X
  5     5    Throw me out
  6     6               6
  7     7               7
  8     8               8
  9     9               9
 10    10              10


But it is more robust than what is shown here.



  

Jason Barnhart wrote:

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Kane" <jrkrideau at yahoo.ca>
To: "lamack lamack" <lamac_k at hotmail.com>; <R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch>
Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2007 2:13 PM
Subject: Re: [R] R and SAS proc format

--- lamack lamack <lamac_k at hotmail.com> wrote:

Dear all, Is there an R equivalent to SAS's proc
format?

What does the SAS PROC FORMAT do?

It formats or reformats data in the SAS system.

Slightly more precisely: It creates user-defined formats, which are
subsequently associated with variables and used for reading, printing,
tabulating, and analyzing data. It is akin to R's factor()
constructions, but not quite. For one thing, SAS's formats are separate
entities - same format can be used for many variables, whereas R's
factors have the formatting coded as a part of the object. For related
reasons, a variable in SAS can have more distinct values than there are
value labesl for, etc.

It looks this:

    proc format; value kanefmt 1='A' 2='B' 3='C' 4='X' 5='Throw me
out';
    data temp; do i=1 to 10; kanevar=put(i,kanefmt.); output; end;
    proc print; run;

And produces this:

Obs     i      kanevar
  1     1    A
  2     2    B
  3     3    C
  4     4    X
  5     5    Throw me out
  6     6               6
  7     7               7
  8     8               8
  9     9               9
 10    10              10


But it is more robust than what is shown here.

--
   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