read.spss {foreign} | R Documentation

## Read an SPSS data file

### Description

`read.spss` reads a file stored by the SPSS `save` and `export` commands and returns a list.

### Usage

    read.spss(file, use.value.labels=TRUE, to.data.frame=FALSE,
              max.value.labels=Inf)

### Arguments

`file` | character variable with the name of the file to read.
`use.value.labels` | Convert variables with value labels into R factors with those levels?
`to.data.frame` | return a data frame?
`max.value.labels` | Only variables with at most this many unique values will be converted to factors

### Details

This uses modified code from the PSPP project for reading the SPSS formats.

Occasionally in SPSS value labels will be added to some values of a continuous variable (eg to distinguish different types of missing data), and you will not want these variables converted to factors. By setting `max.val.labels` you can specify that variables with a large number of distinct values are not converted to factors even if they have value labels. The value labels are then returned in the `"value.labels"` attribute of the variable.

If SPSS variable labels are present, they are returned as the `"variable.labels"` attribute of the answer.

Fixed length strings (including value labels) are padded on the right with spaces by SPSS, and so are read that way by R. See the examples for `sub` for ways to remove trailing spaces.

### Value

A list (or data frame) with one component for each variable in the saved data set.

### Author(s)

Saikat DebRoy

### Examples

    ## Not run:
    read.spss("datafile")
    ## don't convert value labels to factor levels
    read.spss("datafile",use.value.labels=FALSE)
    ## convert value labels to factors for variables with at most
    ## ten distinct values.
    read.spss("datafile",max.val.labels=10)
    ## End(Not run)

[Package Contents]