Can anyone help me write a R data frame as a SAS data set?

Question

In R, I have used the write.foreign() function from the foreign library in order to write a data frame as a SAS data set.

write.foreign(df = test.df, datafile = 'test.sas7bdat', codefile = 'test.txt', package = "SAS")

The SAS data file is written, but when I try to open it in SAS Viewer 9.1 (Windows XP), I receive the following message - "SAS Data set file format is not supported".

Note: I am generally unfamiliar with SAS, so if an answer exists that would have been known by a regular SAS user, please excuse my ignorance.

Answer 1

write.foreign with option package="SAS" actually writes out a comma-delimited text file and then creates a script file with SAS statements to read it in. You have to run SAS and submit the script to turn the text file into a SAS dataset. Your call should look more like

write.foreign(df=test.df, datafile="test.csv", codefile="test.sas", package="SAS")

Note the different extension. Also, write.foreign writes factor variables as numeric variables with a format controlling their appearance -- ie, the R definition of a factor. If you just want the character representation, you'll have to convert the factors via as.character before exporting.