[R] foreign library - negative integers??

[Michaell Taylor]

I am having a problem with the foreign library correctly reading some integer 
data.  Specifically,

d _ read.dta('aptaa.dta')
> d[1:5,]
  scenario metcode   yr  ginv cons   gocc   abs   dvac   gmre   gmer
1        1      AA 2002 0.007 1377 -0.071 51710  0.071 -0.011 -0.127
2        1      AA 2003 0.000    0 -0.016 62568  0.014 -0.043 -0.538
3        1      AA 2004 0.000    0 -0.002 65122  0.002 -0.090 -0.338
4        1      AA 2005 0.000    0  0.000 65528  0.000 -0.036 -0.272
5        1      AA 2006 0.000    0  0.002   309 -0.001 -0.050  0.468
> dd _ read.csv('aptaa.csv',header=T)
> dd[1:5,]
  scenario metcode   yr  ginv cons   gocc    abs   dvac   gmre   gmer
1        1      AA 2002 0.007 1377 -0.071 -13826  0.071 -0.011 -0.127
2        1      AA 2003 0.000    0 -0.016  -2968  0.014 -0.043 -0.538
3        1      AA 2004 0.000    0 -0.002   -414  0.002 -0.090 -0.338
4        1      AA 2005 0.000    0  0.000     -8  0.000 -0.036 -0.272
5        1      AA 2006 0.000    0  0.002    309 -0.001 -0.050  0.468

In theory, dd== d, but notice the differences in abs.

The problem is that aptaa.csv is simply an "outsheet using" (in stata) version 
of aptaa.dta - and thus identical.  I have checked these two files (numerous 
times.).  (loading/reloading/rewriting in stata) 

It appears that the negative "abs" is a problem, but other variables are not 
suffering the same problem. (no other integer variables take negatives)

(this occurs on two different machines - R==1.4 and R==1.5 )  Also, I have 300 
files of similar format, the problem occurs consistently -- seemingly always 
on negative integers.

> version
         _
platform i686-pc-linux-gnu
arch     i686
os       linux-gnu
system   i686, linux-gnu
status
major    1
minor    5.0
year     2002
month    04
day      29
language R
foreign library == foreign_0.5-4.tar.gz


Has anyone seen this before - have a good idea for fixing it?

Michaell
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html
Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe"
(in the "body", not the subject !)  To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch
_._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._