st: New version of -rsource- on SSC

["Roger B. Newson" <r.newson@imperial.ac.uk>]

Thanks as always to Kit Baum, a new version of the -rsource- package is 
now available for download from SSC. In Stata, use the -ssc- command to 
do this, or -adoupdate- if you already have an old version of -rsource-.

The -rsource- package is described as below on my website, and allows 
users to run R from inside Stata, possibly inputting Stata disk datasets 
created by the Stata program and outputting more Stata disk datasets for 
input by the Stata program after R has run. The new version adds a 
-terminator()- option, allowing the user to input the R program from an 
instream sequence of lines, terminated by a terminator string. This 
allows the user to write recombinant do-files, in which one or more R 
programs can be embedded in a Stata program. As in:

        . sysuse auto, clear
        . describe, full
        . saveold myauto.dta, replace
        . rsource, terminator(END_OF_R)
        . library(foreign);
        . rauto<-read.dta("myauto.dta", convert.f=TRUE);
        . rauto;
        . attributes(rauto);
        . q();
        . END_OF_R

This example creates an old-format Stata dataset (which R can read), and 
then runs an R program, terminated by the string END_OF_R, which inputs 
the old-format Stata dataset into an R data frame, and lists the data 
frame, and also lists the R attributes belonging to an R data frame 
input from a Stata dataset. (Such an R data frame has attributes not 
always present for other R data frames, such as $var.labels, which is a 
string vector of variable labels). However, it would probably be more 
usual to input the R data frame into R packages implementing methods not 
yet available in Stata.

I would like to thank Alan Riley, Kerry Kammire and Karen Hickson of 
StataCorp for very helpfully explaining to me about how to use the 
unpublicized -_request2(macroname)- option of the -display- command, 
without which these recombinant do-files would not be possible.

Best wishes

Roger

--
Roger B Newson BSc MSc DPhil
Lecturer in Medical Statistics
Respiratory Epidemiology, Occupational Medicine
and Public Health Group
National Heart and Lung Institute
Imperial College London
Royal Brompton Campus
Room 33, Emmanuel Kaye Building
1B Manresa Road
London SW3 6LR
UNITED KINGDOM
Tel: +44 (0)20 7352 8121 ext 3381
Fax: +44 (0)20 7351 8322
Email: r.newson@imperial.ac.uk
Web page: http://www.imperial.ac.uk/nhli/r.newson/
Departmental Web page:
http://www1.imperial.ac.uk/medicine/about/divisions/nhli/respiration/popgenetics/reph/

Opinions expressed are those of the author, not of the institution.

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package rsource from http://www.imperial.ac.uk/nhli/r.newson/stata10
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TITLE
      rsource: Run R from inside Stata

DESCRIPTION/AUTHOR(S)
      rsource runs an R source program, from an inline sequence of lines
      and/or from a file, in batch mode from within Stata, optionally
      listing the R output and/or the R source code to the Stata Results
      window and/or the Stata log file.  This allows the user to call R
      at a point in the execution of a Stata program to input data files
      previously created by Stata and/or to create output data files for
      later input by Stata.  The R software system must be installed on
      the user's system if the rsource package is to work.

      Author: Roger Newson
      Distribution-Date: 28february2014
      Stata-Version: 10

INSTALLATION FILES                                  (click here to install)
      rsource.ado
      rsource.sthlp
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