memisc (version 0.97)

Iconv: Convert Annotations, and Value Labels between Encodings

Description

This function uses the base package function iconv to translate variable descriptions (a.k.a variable labels) and value labels of item, data.set, and importer objects into a specified encoding. It will be useful in UTF-8 systems when data file come in some ancient encoding like 'Latin-1' as long used by Windows systems.

Usage

Iconv(x,from="",to="",...) 
## S3 method for class 'annotation':
Iconv(x,from="",to="",\dots) 
## S3 method for class 'data.set':
Iconv(x,from="",to="",\dots) 
## S3 method for class 'importer':
Iconv(x,from="",to="",\dots) 
## S3 method for class 'item':
Iconv(x,from="",to="",\dots) 
## S3 method for class 'value.labels':
Iconv(x,from="",to="",\dots)

Arguments

x

an object of which attributes are to be re-encoded.

from

a character string desribing the original encoding

to

a character string desribing the target encoding

...

further arguments, passed to iconv

Value

• Iconv returns a copy of its first argument with re-encoded attributes.

See Also

iconv,iconvlist

Examples

# Locate an SPSS 'system' file and get info on variables, their labels etc.
ZA5302 <- spss.system.file("Daten/ZA5302_v6-0-0.sav",to.lower=FALSE)

# Convert labels etc. from 'latin1' to the encoding of the current locale.
ZA5302 <- Iconv(ZA5302,from="latin1")

# Write out the codebook
writeLines(as.character(codebook(ZA5302)),
           con="ZA5302-cdbk.txt")

# Write out the description of the varialbes (their 'variable labels')
writeLines(as.character(description(ZA5302)),
           con="ZA5302-description.txt")