read.ssd               package:foreign               R Documentation

obtain a data frame from a SAS permanent dataset, via read.xport

Description:

     generates a SAS program to convert the ssd contents to SAS
     transport format and then uses 'read.xport' to obtain a dataframe

Usage:

     read.ssd(libname, sectionnames, 
        tmpXport=tempfile(), tmpProgLoc=tempfile(), sascmd="sas")

Arguments:

 libname: string defining the SAS library (usually a directory
          reference)

sectionnames: vector of strings giving member names. These are files in
          the `libname' directory. They will usually have a `.ssd0x' or
          `.sas7bdat' extension, which should be omitted.

tmpXport: string: location where temporary xport format archive should
          reside - defaults to a randomly named file in /tmp, which
          will be removed

tmpProgLoc: string: location where temporary conversion program should
          reside - defaults to a randomly named file in /tmp, which
          will be removed

  sascmd: string: defaults to "sas"

Details:

     creates a SAS program and runs it

Value:

     a data frame if all goes well, or NULL with warnings and some
     enduring side effects (log file for auditing)

Note:

     error handling is primitive

Author(s):

     VJ Carey <stvjc@channing.harvard.edu>

See Also:

     'read.xport'

Examples:

     ## if there were some files on the web we could get a real
     ## runnable example
     ## Not run: 
     R> list.files("trialdata")
      [1] "baseline.sas7bdat" "form11.sas7bdat"   "form12.sas7bdat"  
      [4] "form13.sas7bdat"   "form22.sas7bdat"   "form23.sas7bdat"  
      [7] "form3.sas7bdat"    "form4.sas7bdat"    "form48.sas7bdat"  
     [10] "form50.sas7bdat"   "form51.sas7bdat"   "form71.sas7bdat"  
     [13] "form72.sas7bdat"   "form8.sas7bdat"    "form9.sas7bdat"   
     [16] "form90.sas7bdat"   "form91.sas7bdat"  
     R> baseline<-read.ssd("trialdata","baseline")
     R> form90<-read.ssd("trialdata","form90")
     ## End(Not run)

