R provides a wide range of built-in and user-defined data structures. When data are transferred from R to SAS software, the data are coerced to a data frame prior to the transfer. If the coersion fails, the data are not transferred.

The section Using R to Analyze Data in SAS/IML Matrices presents an example of an R object that cannot be directly imported to SAS software and shows how to use R functions to extract simpler data structures from the R object.