Interfacing R with Other Software

Arindam Basu MBBS MPH PhD

School of Health Sciences,
University of Canterbury
arin.basu@gmail.com

This is R in RStudio
This is Stata
They Do Not Easily Speak
Questions
Why Not?
Is there a Need to Let them Speak with Each
Other?
Can I work entirely in R while keeping my data
in Stata/Spss?
Can I work entirely in Stata while coding in R?
Why do I need to Integrate?
I like R; my colleague likes X
Combine the flexibility and features of both
software
Others?
Demonstrate R
Calling Stata Data into R
Use foreign package
Calling R into SPSS
Install R plug-in from
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/spssdevcen
tral
You can use SPSS GUI following installation, or
use SPSS syntax to get your work done
SPSS Syntax to Call R in SPSS
Running R from Within Stata
Use the File command to create the file to
write R code
Invoke a shell using shell command within
Stata
In Mac, OK to write R
In Windows, Use the /Path/to/R.exe
Talking Points
It is relatively easy to use R flexibly with other
software such as Stata and SPSS
Similar routines exist for SAS, JMP, and Statistica
The Package Foreign is very useful, but for large
data sets, consider memisc package
With Other software, in most cases with R
installed, invoking shell is effective
For More information, see
http://r4stats.com/articles/calling-r/