I'm working in R, but I need to deliver some data in SPSS format with both 'variable labels' and 'value labels' and I'm kinda stuck.
I've added variable labels to my data using the Hmisc
's label
function. This add the variable labels as a label attribute
, which is handy when using describe()
from the Hmisc
package. The problem is that I cannot get the write.foreign()
function, from the foreign
package, to recognize these labels as variable labels. I imagine I need to modify write.foreign()
to use the label attribute
as variable label
when writing the .sps
file.
I looked at the R list and at stackoverflow, but I could only find a post from 2006 on the R list regarding exporting varibles labels to SPSS from R and it doesn't seem to answer my question.
Here is my working example,
# First I create a dummy dataset
df <- data.frame(id = c(1:6), p.code = c(1, 5, 4, NA, 0, 5),
p.label = c('Optometrists', 'Nurses', 'Financial analysts',
'<NA>', '0', 'Nurses'), foo = LETTERS[1:6])
# Second, I add some variable labels using label from the Hmisc package
# install.packages('Hmisc', dependencies = TRUE)
library(Hmisc)
label(df) <- "Sweet sweet data"
label(df$id) <- "id !@#$%^"
label(df$p.label) <- "Profession with human readable information"
label(df$p.code) <- "Profession code"
label(df$foo) <- "Variable label for variable x.var"
# modify the name of one varibes, just to see what happens when exported.
names(df)[4] <- "New crazy name for 'foo'"
# Third I export the data with write.foreign from the foreign package
# install.packages('foreign', dependencies = TRUE)
setwd('C:\\temp')
library(foreign)
write.foreign(df,"df.wf.txt","df.wf.sps", package="SPSS")
list.files()
[1] "df.wf.sps" "df.wf.txt"
When I inspect the .sps
file (see the content of 'df.wf.sps' below) my variable labels
are identical to my variable names
, except for foo that I renamed to "New crazy name for 'foo'." This variable has a new and seemly random name, but the correct variable label.
Does anyone know how to get the label attributes and the variable names exported as 'variable labels' and 'labels names' into a .sps
file? Maybe there is a smarter way to store 'variable labels' then my current method?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Eric
Content of 'df.wf.sps' export using write.foreign
from the foreign
package
DATA LIST FILE= "df.wf.txt" free (",")
/ id p.code p.label Nwcnf.f. .
VARIABLE LABELS
id "id"
p.code "p.code"
p.label "p.label"
Nwcnf.f. "New crazy name for 'foo'"
.
VALUE LABELS
/
p.label
1 "0"
2 "Financial analysts"
3 "Nurses"
4 "Optometrists"
/
Nwcnf.f.
1 "A"
2 "B"
3 "C"
4 "D"
5 "E"
6 "F"
.
EXECUTE.
Update April 16 2012 at 15:54:24 PDT;
What I am looking for is a way to tweak write.foreign
to write a .sps
file where this part,
[…]
VARIABLE LABELS
id "id"
p.code "p.code"
p.label "p.label"
Nwcnf.f. "New crazy name for 'foo'"
[…]
looks like this,
[…]
VARIABLE LABELS
id "id !@#$%^"
p.code "Profession code"
p.label "Profession with human readable information"
"New crazy name for 'foo'" "New crazy name for 'foo'"
[…]
The last line is a bit ambitious, I don't really need to have a variables with white spaces in the names, but I would like the label attributes to be transferred to the .spas file (that I produce with R).
The function that you linked to (here) should work, but I think the problem is that your dataset doesn't actually have the
variable.label
andlabel.table
attributes that would be needed to write the SPSS script file.I don't have access to SPSS, but try the following and see if it at least points you in the right direction. Unfortunately, I don't see an easy way to do this other than editing the output of
dput
manually.Compare the above with the output of
dput
for your sample dataset. Notice thatlabel.table
andvariable.labels
have been added, and a line that said something likerow.names = c(NA, -6L), class = "data.frame"
was removed.Update
NOTE: This will not work with the default
write.foreign
function in R. To test this you first need to load thewrite.SPSS
function shared here, and (of course), make sure that you have theforeign
package loaded. Then, you write your files as follows:Try this function and see if it works for you. If not, add a comment and I can see what I can do as far as troubleshooting goes.
The above example is assuming that your data is named
df
, and you have usedHmisc
to add labels, as you described in your question.Update: A Self-Contained Function
If you do not want to alter your original file, as in the example above, and if you are connected to the internet while you are using this function, you can try this self-contained function:
Usage is simple: