[R] "haven" - read_spss: How to avoid extracting value labels instead of long labels?

[Dimitri Liakhovitski]

Looks like a little bug in 'haven':

When I actually look at the attributes of one variable that has no
long label in SPSS but has Value Labels, I am getting:
attr(spss1$WAVE, "label")
NULL

But when I sapply my function longlabels to my data frame and ask it
to print the long labels for each column, for the same column "WAVE" I
am getting - instead of NULL:
NULL
VERY/SOMEWHAT FAMILIAR    NOT AT ALL FAMILIAR
                     1                      2

This is, of course, incorrect, because it grabs the next attribute
(which one? And replaces NULL with it).
Any suggestions?
Thanks!




On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 11:56 AM, Dimitri Liakhovitski
<dimitri.liakhovitski at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello!
>
> I don't have an example file, but I think my question should be clear
> without it.
> I have an SPSS file. I read it in using 'haven':
>
> library(haven)
> spss1 <- read_spss("SPSS_Example.sav")
>
> I created a function that extracts the long labels (in SPSS - "Label"):
>
> fix_labels <- function(x, TextIfMissing) {
>       val <- attr(x, "label")
>       if (is.null(val)) TextIfMissing else val
> }
> longlabels <- sapply(spss1, fix_labels, TextIfMissing = "NO LABLE IN SPSS")
>
> This function is supposed to create a vector of long labels and
> usually it does, e.g.:
>
> str(longlabels)
>  Named chr [1:64] "Serial number" ...
>  - attr(*, "names")= chr [1:64] "Respondent_Serial" "weight" "r7_1" "r7_2" ...
>
> However, I just got an SPSS file with 92 columns and ran exactly the
> same function on it. Now, I am getting not a vector, but a list
>
> str(longlabels)
> List of 92
>  $ VEHRATED      : chr "VEHICLE RATED"
>  $ RESPID        : chr "RESPONDENT ID"
>  $ RESPID8       : chr "8 DIGIT RESPONDENT NUMBER"
>
> An observation about the structure of longlabels here: those columns
> that do NOT have a long lable in SPSS but DO have Values (value
> labels) - for them my function grabs their value labels, so that now
> my long label is recorded as a numeric vector with names, e.g.:
>
>  $ AWARE2        : Named num [1:2] 1 2
>   ..- attr(*, "names")= chr [1:2] "VERY/SOMEWHAT FAMILIAR" "NOT AT ALL FAMILIAR"
>
> Question: How could I avoid the extraction of the Value Labels for the
> columns that have no long labels?
>
> Thank you very much!
> --
> Dimitri Liakhovitski



-- 
Dimitri Liakhovitski