Save a data frame to a file

jsave() writes a data frame to a file. Supports SPSS (.sav), Stata (.dta), SAS interchange (.xpt), Excel (.xlsx), CSV (.csv), and R's native .rds format.

The file format is determined entirely by the file extension you provide — for example, "mydata.sav" saves as SPSS, "mydata.dta" saves as Stata, and "mydata.xlsx" saves as Excel. Changing the extension changes the format.

By default, jsave() writes bare-filename saves to the working directory, matching base R's saveRDS() and write.csv(). To save into a subfolder, set joptions(data.dir = "...") once per session (or in .Rprofile). Filenames containing a directory separator (/) bypass this setting and are taken literally.

If the data argument is omitted, the default data frame set by juse() is used.

Usage

jsave(data, file, overwrite = FALSE, preserve.udm = TRUE)

Arguments

data

A data frame (unquoted). If omitted, uses the default set by juse().

file

Character string. The filename with extension (e.g. "mydata.sav") or a full file path. Use forward slashes in file paths.

overwrite

Logical. If TRUE, overwrites an existing file without prompting. If FALSE (default), prompts for confirmation in interactive sessions. In non-interactive sessions, stops with an error.

preserve.udm

Logical. If TRUE (the default), missing-value declarations are written as they stand; formats that cannot store them (notably Excel and CSV) drop the metadata, and SPSS-style codes such as -99 then read back as ordinary numbers. If FALSE, those codes are blanked to plain NA before writing, so they become empty cells. Mirrors the preserve.udm argument of jload. The pre-flight checks for the .sav, .dta, and .xpt formats run before this step, so a missing-value form a target format cannot represent is still reported and blocked rather than silently dropped.

Value

Invisibly returns NULL. Called for its side effect of writing a file to disk.

Details

File paths: Use forward slashes (/) in file paths. If you copy a path from Windows File Explorer, replace the backslashes with forward slashes. R does not accept single backslashes in file paths.

File location:

• If the path contains a directory separator, the file is saved to that exact location.

• If the path is a bare filename and joptions("data.dir") is set, the file is saved to that folder (auto-created if it doesn't yet exist).

• If the path is a bare filename and joptions("data.dir") is unset (the default), the file is saved to the working directory.

Format notes:

• SPSS (.sav) and Stata (.dta) preserve variable labels and value labels.

• Excel (.xlsx) and CSV (.csv) do not preserve variable or value labels.

• R native (.rds) preserves the data frame exactly as it exists in R, including all attributes.

• Stata files are written as version 14 format.

• Legacy Excel format (.xls) is not supported for saving. Use .xlsx instead.

See also

jstats for the package overview, workflow conventions, and complete function listing.

Examples

# A runnable save into R's session temporary folder
jsave(community, file.path(tempdir(), "community.sav"), overwrite = TRUE)
#> Saved community to /tmp/RtmpVZEdEN/community.sav (SPSS format; 100 cases, 15 variables)

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
# The file extension determines the format ---
# the same data frame can be saved in any supported format
jsave(community, "community.sav")         # SPSS
jsave(community, "community.xlsx")        # Excel
jsave(community, "community.csv")         # CSV
jsave(community, "community.rds")         # R native

# Stata and SAS formats cannot carry community's SPSS-form missing-value
# declarations -- convert first (jsave() pre-flights this and says so)
jsave(jconvert(community, to = "stata"), "community.dta")   # Stata
jsave(jconvert(community, to = "baseR"), "community.xpt")   # SAS interchange

# Using juse() default
jsave(, "community.sav")

# Full file path
jsave(community, "C:/Output/community.sav")
} # }