[Rd] data messed up by read.table ? (PR#9779)

[Peter Dalgaard]

100700.3013 at compuserve.com wrote:
> Full_Name: Joerg Rauh
> Version: 2.5.0
> OS: Windows 2000
> Submission from: (NULL) (84.168.226.163)
>
>
> Following Michael J. Crawley "Statistical Computing" on page 9 the worms.txt is
> required. After downloading it from the book's supporting website, which is 
> http://www.bio.ic.ac.uk/research/mjcraw/statcomp/data/ I visually check the data
> against the book and they look identical. Then I do a read.table as suggested:
> worms<-read.table("C:/Programme/R/R-2.5.0/Data/Worms.txt", header = T).
>
> Typing "worms" to see the data, it's no longer the same: Four lines have been
> added to the beginning of the file. One is the header line and three lines are
> from further down in the file, i.e. lines 10,11 and 12 in reverse order.
> Please look at a copy at the end of this mail. If the first four lines weren't
> there, the data would be o.k. I tried different parameter settings in read.table
> but couldn't obtain any improvement.
>
> Please let me know, how I can correct this.
>
> Best regards
>
> Joerg
>
>   
>>  worms<-read.table("C:/Programme/R/R-2.5.0/Data/Worms.txt", header = T)
>> worms
>>     
>           Field.Name Area Slope Vegetation Soil.pH Damp Worm.density
> 1           Oak.Mead  3.1     2  Grassland     3.9    F            2
> 2       Church.Field  3.5     3  Grassland     4.2    F            3
> 3            Ashurst  2.1     0     Arable     4.8    F            4
> 4         Field.Name Area Slope Vegetation Soil.pH Damp Worm.density
> 5       Nash's.Field  3.6    11  Grassland     4.1    F            4
> 6     Silwood.Bottom  5.1     2     Arable     5.2    F            7
> 7      Nursery.Field  2.8     3  Grassland     4.3    F            2
> 8        Rush.Meadow  2.4     5     Meadow     4.9    T            5
> 9   Gunness'.Thicket  3.8     0      Scrub     4.2    F            6
> 10          Oak.Mead  3.1     2  Grassland     3.9    F            2
> 11      Church.Field  3.5     3  Grassland     4.2    F            3
> 12           Ashurst  2.1     0     Arable     4.8    F            4
> 13       The.Orchard  1.9     0    Orchard     5.7    F            9
> 14     Rookery.Slope  1.5     4  Grassland       5    T            7
> 15       Garden.Wood  2.9    10      Scrub     5.2    F            8
> 16      North.Gravel  3.3     1  Grassland     4.1    F            1
> 17      South.Gravel  3.7     2  Grassland       4    F            2
> 18 Observatory.Ridge  1.8     6  Grassland     3.8    F            0
> 19        Pond.Field  4.1     0     Meadow       5    T            6
> 20      Water.Meadow  3.9     0     Meadow     4.9    T            8
> 21         Cheapside  2.2     8      Scrub     4.7    T            4
> 22        Pound.Hill  4.4     2     Arable     4.5    F            5
> 23        Gravel.Pit  2.9     1  Grassland     3.5    F            1
> 24         Farm.Wood  0.8    10      Scrub     5.1    T            3
>   
Same thing happens on Linux. It appears to be the single quotes that 
mess things up. Using read.delim(), which is designed to read 
tab-delimitedfiles like this one, works as does setting quote="".