psid_read {psidread}

Read PSID data from the packaged data file or customized data file

Description

psid_read() is the core function which enables the user to read variables from multiple packaged PSID data files using just one line of code.

Usage

psid_read(indir, str_df, idvars = NA, type, filename = NA)

Arguments

indir

A character value of the directory path where the user store the .rda data files. This value should be the same as the exdir in the psid_unzip()

str_df

A data frame of the data structure, generated from the psid_str() function.

idvars

A vector of character values, including the variables that do not change across years. Labelled as "ALL YEAR" in PSID website.

type

The type of data that the user downloaded from PSID. Set to "package" if the user downloaded packaged dataset, "single" if the user downloaded selected data set.

filename

A character value of the name of the file. You can use the filename value you used when you run psid_unzip(), or a filename without any file extension.

Details

This function also offers the option to read a customized single data files with selected variables. It is important to note that psid_read() does not change the original variable names as they are in the source data. To execute it effectively, please make sure that:

• psid_str() has been executed beforehand and the table of data structure has been in the environment.

• psid_unzip() has been executed to prepare the data in .rda format.

Value

A data frame with all the selected variables inside but name unchanged.

Examples

# Example 1: Read from multiple package data files (Whole procedure)
psid_varlist = c(" hh_age || [13]ER53017 [17]ER66017",
                            " p_age || [13]ER34204")
str_df <- psid_str(varlist = psid_varlist,
                   type = "separated")
# Below is the file path for the package test data, set this to your own directory
indir <- system.file(package = "psidread","extdata")
psid_read(indir = indir,
          str_df = str_df,
          idvars = c("ER30000"),
          type = "package",
          filename = NA)

# Example 2: Read from your customized data file (Whole procedure)
filename = "J327825.zip"
psid_read(indir = indir,
          str_df = str_df,
          idvars = c("ER30000"),
          type = "single",
          filename = filename)