R Observatory: Metrics for asciiSetupReader version 2.6.0

Balamuta, James Joseph

doi:10.5281/zenodo.21843040

asciiSetupReader

2.6.0Package record

Reads Fixed-Width ASCII Data Files (.txt or .dat) that Have Accompanying Setup Files (.sps or .sas)

1packages depend

6.1Kdownloads / year

91.9%test coverage

13/13flavors OK

Overview

About

Maintained by Jacob KaplanCRAN page ↗GitHub ↗Issues ↗

Lets you open a fixed-width ASCII file (.txt or .dat) that has an accompanying setup file (.sps or .sas). These file combinations are sometimes referred to as .txt+.sps, .txt+.sas, .dat+.sps, or .dat+.sas. This will only run in a txt-sps or txt-sas pair in which the setup file contains instructions to open that text file. It will NOT open other text files, .sav, .sas, or .por data files. Fixed-width ASCII files with setup files are common in older (pre-2000) government data.

Changes in 2.6.0

Bug fixes

coerce_numeric = TRUE now checks every row before converting a column to numeric. Previously files over 50,000 rows only had a random sample of rows checked (and a file of exactly 50,000 rows only 5,000), so a column with rare text values could be converted to numeric, silently turning those values into NA, differently on every run. The sampling also changed the user's random number stream.
Values with bytes that are invalid in the current locale no longer cause an error when checking for numeric columns (the column stays character) or when applying open-ended missing value ranges.
make_sps_setup() works again on R >= 4.5.0 (it failed with "NA in coercion to boolean"), works when col_labels isn't given, and no longer leaves a sink() open if it fails. A file_name ending in ".SPS" no longer gets a second extension, and one merely ending in "sps" (e.g. "datasps") is no longer cut short.

Show all changes in 2.6.0Hide the rest of the changes in 2.6.0

Missing values given as "X thru highest" no longer fail with "labels must be unique" when the value X itself appears in the data.
Open-ended missing value ranges now match zero-padded data (e.g. "0000012" for "0000009 THRU HI"). Previously those values were left in the data.
Missing value ranges written "LO THRU X" or "LOWEST THRU X" are now applied. Previously only "low thru" was recognized, so these were ignored.
make_sps_setup()'s missing_values accepts column names as well as labels. Previously a column name was treated as a missing value of the column before it.
SPSS setup files whose first line is DATA LIST can now be read.

Speed

Parsing setup files is much faster, especially for files with many columns (e.g. PSID setup files: from about 2 minutes to under 10 seconds).
Reading data is faster: the data is no longer copied twice, and value labels and missing values are applied with a direct lookup.

Other changes

spss_ascii_reader() and sas_ascii_reader() now call read_ascii_setup(); results and arguments are unchanged.
Data files are read with vroom only. If vroom failed, the package used to retry silently with readr, which since readr 2.0 reads with vroom too, so the retry rarely helped and hid vroom's error. Now vroom's error is shown.
The package no longer depends on haven or zoo.
Requires R >= 3.6.0 (as vroom already did).
Examples now run, and the code is commented.
Adds a GitHub Actions R CMD check workflow, replacing Travis and AppVeyor.

From NEWS.md in the release

Install

R (CRAN)pak (dev)Ubuntu (r2u)Fedora (COPR)openSUSE (OBS)

install.packages("asciiSetupReader", repos = "https://cloud.r-project.org/")

Installs the current CRAN release. Prebuilt binaries on Windows and macOS.

if (!requireNamespace("pak", quietly = TRUE))
  install.packages("pak", repos = "https://cloud.r-project.org/")
pak::pak("jacobkap/asciiSetupReader")

Development version from jacobkap/asciiSetupReader. Installs pak first if it is not already available.

Release

# enable cranapt (r2u) if it is not already set up, then install
grep -rqs r2u.stat.illinois.edu /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ \
  || curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/eddelbuettel/r2u/master/inst/scripts/add_cranapt_noble.sh | sudo bash
sudo apt install -y r-cran-asciisetupreader

Fast Ubuntu binaries via r2u (no compilation). The cranapt setup runs once and is skipped when it is already enabled. We list this channel from recorded r2u download activity rather than from a live index of the repository, so treat it as last known rather than guaranteed.

bspm (used by r2u) also needs make: sudo apt install make

# enable the iucar/cran COPR if it is not already present, then install
ls /etc/yum.repos.d/*iucar*cran*.repo >/dev/null 2>&1 \
  || sudo dnf copr enable -y iucar/cran
sudo dnf install -y R-CRAN-asciiSetupReader

RPMs from the iucar/cran COPR, rebuilt from CRAN.

For install.packages() integration in R, also: sudo dnf install R-CoprManager

# add the autoCRAN OBS repo (Tumbleweed) if it is missing, then install
zypper -q lr | grep -qi autoCRAN \
  || sudo zypper addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/languages:/R:/autoCRAN/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/devel:languages:R:autoCRAN.repo
sudo zypper install -y R-asciiSetupReader

RPMs auto-built from CRAN on openSUSE OBS (Tumbleweed). We list this channel from recorded autoCRAN download activity rather than from a live index of the repository, so treat it as last known rather than guaranteed.

Health

CRAN checks

13OK

CRAN check page ↗

Slowest check: 8.1 min · r-oldrel-windows-x86_64

Status changes

OK13 OK2026-08-05
NOTE12 OK, 1 NOTE2026-08-01
OK13 OK2026-06-09
ERROR12 OK, 1 ERROR2026-06-08
OK14 OK2026-03-10

Advisories

none known

How this is measured·How advisories are found

Documentation

In release 2.6.0

READMEYes · 259 wordsVignettesYes · 3 · dynamicNEWSYes · 100% structured · mentions 2.6.0Citation fileNo

Help pages: 6
Examples that run: 100%6 run in a plain check (1 of them under a condition)
Exported functions with examples: 100%
Documented parameters: 100%
Return-value docs: 100%
Help pages citing references: 0%

Vignettes (3)

How these are measured

Downloads

6.1K

CRAN downloads in the past year

Rank #5,145 · ~17/day · ~508/mo

Releases R versions

Daily download trend is not available in this view yet.

58030 days

1.6K90 days

6.1K1 year

Compare downloads with other packages →

Also on228 r2u39 autocran

How downloads are counted

Repository

jacobkap/asciisetupreader ↗Account: jacobkap

14Stars

5Forks

0Open issues

0Open PRs

1Releases

268Commits

2Commit identities

asciifixed-widthdata-readerrsasdatspssfixed-width-text

268 commits · Last activity 2026-10-17 · 0% stars, 30d · Default branch at 2.6.0.9000, ahead of CRAN 2.6.0 (checked 2026-10-18)

Responsiveness

How these are sampled

PRs merged (all time): 100%
Median days to close, 50 most recently updated closed issues: 14
Median days to close, 50 most recently updated closed PRs: 0

Stars over time

2025-03-29 · 122026-09-01 · 14

How these are measured

PracticesBeta

12 development-tooling and community-health practices detected across 6 families in the upstream repository

Checks run against github.com/jacobkap/asciisetupreader on 2026-10-18.

Continuous integration (2)

GitHub ActionsR CMD check workflow

The R CMD check workflow runs on Linux, macOS and Windows, and on R-devel

Governance and community (3)

Code of conductContributing guideIssue templates

Docs source (3)

README.Rmdpkgdown

GitHub Pages site last deployed 2026-10-17

Coverage (1)

Coverage reporting (Codecov)

Show all practicesHide 2 practices

CRAN release process (2)

cran-comments.mdrevdep/

Lint, format, editor (1)

RStudio project

How this is detected·Detection ruleset v3 (2026-09-26)

AI coding toolsBeta

This repository shows signs of AI coding tools.

Claude Codefirst seen 2026-10-15
Named in .gitignore: .claude
Pull request it wrote: opened by a project member
Commits: at least 19 crediting it in the message

Models named in its commits

Claude Opus 5.519 commits · Oct 2026

Counts are commits, not lines of code. Commits by a tool's accounts count once across all of its accounts. Commits crediting it are the largest count among its credit lines, a minimum.How this is detected·Detection ruleset v4 (updated 2026-09-27)

Dependencies

Declared dependencies

11 external dependencies (excludes base and recommended)

Installing asciiSetupReader adds 52 packages (30 with compiled code, 47 MB of source tarballs). Heaviest: stringi 11 MB, data.table 5.7 MB, bslib 5.6 MB.

Depends (1)

R >= 3.6.0

Imports (7)

data.table readr vroom stringr shiny miniUI rstudioapi

LinkingTo (0)

none

Suggests (4)

covr knitr rmarkdown testthat

Enhances (0)

none

Dependency license breakdown →

Reverse dependencies

1direct

0indirect

Imports 1

Depends, Imports or LinkingTo, most downloaded first

psidread

How these are counted

Code & Tests

People & History

People (1)

Jacob Kaplan

Author, Maintainer since 1.0 (2017)

Releases (16)

Pick two releases to compare their code metrics.

2.6.0Latest
record
2026-10-17 · current release · diff ↗
R
R 4.6.0 released · 2026-04-24
2.5.3
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2025-09-23 · diff ↗
R
R 4.5.0 released · 2025-04-11
2.5.2
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2024-08-17 · diff ↗
R
R 4.4.0 released · 2024-04-24
2.5.1
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2023-07-05 · diff ↗
R
R 4.3.0 released · 2023-04-21
R
R 4.2.0 released · 2022-04-22
R
R 4.1.0 released · 2021-05-18
2.4.0
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2021-02-03 · diff ↗
2.3.2
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2020-11-28 · diff ↗
R
R 4.0.0 released · 2020-04-24
2.3.1
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2020-03-21 · diff ↗
2.3.0
record
2020-01-19 · diff ↗
2.2.0
record
2019-10-08 · diff ↗ ·
added 1 export
read_ascii_setup_addin

Show 10 earlier eventsHide 10 earlier events

2.1.0
record
2019-06-28 · diff ↗
R
R 3.6.0 released · 2019-04-26
2.0.1
record
2019-02-05 · diff ↗
2.0.0
record
2019-02-04 · diff ↗ ·
added 3 exports
make_sps_setup, parse_setup, read_ascii_setup
1.4.0
record
2018-06-18 · diff ↗
R
R 3.5.0 released · 2018-04-23
1.2
record
2017-11-26 · diff ↗
1.1
record
2017-10-11 · diff ↗
1.0
record
2017-09-07
R
R 3.4.0 released · 2017-04-21

Package metadata

First published: 2017-09-07
Total releases: 16 / 9 yrs
License: MIT + file LICENSE OSI · relicensed from GPL in 2.0.0
Minimum R: ≥ 3.6.0
Download size: 3.5 MB

Cite

Cite this package

Run in R for the authors' preferred citation:

citation("asciiSetupReader")

Format

Kaplan, J. (2026). asciiSetupReader: Reads Fixed-Width ASCII Data Files (.txt or .dat) that Have Accompanying Setup Files (.sps or .sas) (Version 2.6.0) [Computer software]. https://doi.org/10.32614/CRAN.package.asciiSetupReader

This package has no citation file, so citation() returns this entry built from DESCRIPTION.

Cite the R Observatory

For a number measured here: a download total, a coverage figure, an archival date.

Format

APA

Balamuta, J. J. (2026). R Observatory: Metrics for asciiSetupReader version 2.6.0 [Data set]. HJJB, LLC. Data release v2026-10-20. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21843040

From data release v2026-10-20, which the citation names so these numbers can be found later. More on citing and the projects behind them.

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