[R] foreign package: unable to read S-Plus objects

[Viechtbauer, Wolfgang (NP)]

@Joe: I have S-Plus 6.0 ("Professional Edition Version 6.0.3 Release 2 for Microsoft Windows : 2001") running here and can't load them there either. Tried simdat and S-Plus apparently thinks it is a script and then you just get a garbled up mess. Tried to change it to simdat.sdd and a few other extensions, but this didn't help.

Also tried:

data.restore("simdat")

but this also didn't work:

Warning messages:
  file "simdat": incomplete last line
Problem: in reading invalid mode for data: [again a garbled mess] at line 2

Not sure how else these are supposed to be read into S-Plus (and if they are even compatible with this version, although version 6 was the current version between 2001 and 2005).

Best,
Wolfgang

>-----Original Message-----
>From: R-help [mailto:r-help-bounces using r-project.org] On Behalf Of Kevin Thorpe
>Sent: Tuesday, 17 January, 2023 13:07
>To: Joseph Voelkel
>Cc: R Help Mailing List
>Subject: Re: [R] foreign package: unable to read S-Plus objects
>
>I think you may be right about the cause. From the, “R Data Import/Export”
>document I find,
>
>Function read.S which can read binary objects produced by S-PLUS 3.x, 4.x or 2000
>on (32-bit) Unix or Windows (and can read them on a different OS). This is able
>to read many but not all S objects: in particular it can read vectors, matrices
>and data frames and lists containing those.
>
>This suggests that the binary objects you have cannot be read by this function.
>The next two paragraphs read,
>
>Function data.restore reads S-PLUS data dumps (created by data.dump) with the
>same restrictions (except that dumps from the Alpha platform can also be read).
>It should be possible to read data dumps from S-PLUS 5.x and later written with
>data.dump(oldStyle=T).
>
>If you have access to S-PLUS, it is usually more reliable to dump the object(s)
>in S-PLUS and source the dump file in R. For S-PLUS 5.x and later you may need to
>use dump(..., oldStyle=T), and to read in very large objects it may be preferable
>to use the dump file as a batch script rather than use the source function.
>
>I think this means that if you had dumped versions of the files you could read
>them back with data.restore() or source().
>
>> On Jan 16, 2023, at 5:22 PM, Joseph Voelkel <jgvcqa using rit.edu> wrote:
>>
>> [You don't often get email from jgvcqa using rit.edu. Learn why this is important at
>https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification ]
>>
>> Dear foreign maintainers and others,
>>
>> I am trying to import a number of S-Plus objects into R. The only way I see how
>to do this is by using the foreign package.
>>
>> However, when I try to do this I receive an error message. A snippet of code
>and the error message follows:
>>
>> read.S(file.path(Spath, "nrand"))
>> Error in read.S(file.path(Spath, "nrand")) : not an S object
>>
>> I no longer know the version of S-Plus in which these objects were created. I
>do know that I have printed documentation, dated July 2001, from S-Plus 6; and
>that all S-Plus objects were created in the 9/2004 -- 5/2005 range.
>>
>> I am afraid that I simply have S-Plus objects that are not the S version 3
>files that the foreign package can read, yes? But I am still hoping that it may
>be possible to read these in.
>>
>> I am not attaching some sample S-Plus objects to this email, because I  believe
>they will be stripped away as binary files. However, a sample of these files may
>be found at
>>
>>
>https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wFVa972ciP44Ob2YVWfqk8SGIodzAXPv?usp=shar
>ing  (simdat is the largest file, at 469 KB)
>>
>> Thank you for any assistance you may provide.
>>
>> R 4.2.2
>> Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.22000.1455]
>> foreign_0.8-83
>>
>> Joe Voelkel
>> Professor Emeritus
>> RIT