[R] Reading Version 4 .sdd files

[John Chandler]

Dear R-Help,

I've never had any trouble importing data into R until I had to import
an .sdd file for a class. The file can be found here:
http://www.math.umt.edu/steele/Math%20549/Farms.sdd. It begins with the
line "## Dump S Version 4 Dump ##". I first attempted read.S which
issued the message "not an S object". I then checked the Import/Export
manual which seemed to indicate that data.restore might do the trick.
Alas, it seems that function is trying to interpret the name of the data
frame as an S mode or some such thing.

Searched the archives (courtesy of Dr. Baron) and found this from Dr.
Ripley: ".sdd files from S-PLUS 6.0 are
S4 dumps, and will not work." This was written in 2002, is it still
accurate? Right now my only obvious course of action is to get on a
machine that has S+, read in this file and dump it in a more useful
format. Are their others?

Thanks so much,
John

P.S. I've been an R user for 4 years now and a subscriber to this list
for almost that long. I'd just like to say an enormous thanks to
everyone who contributes to the R project in some way. R is the most
impressive realization of the free software movement I've ever seen.
Particular thanks to the R core, those who publish the journal, and the
authors of excellent and too-numerous-to-mention books on R and S.


John Chandler-Pepelnjak 
Senior Analyst
atlas DMT(tm)
johnc at atlasdmt.com
206.816.8454 // direct 
206.816.8909 // fax
www.atlasdmt.com