[Rd] On read.csv and write.csv

Gabriel Becker g@bembecker @end|ng |rom gm@||@com
Fri Jul 2 00:29:40 CEST 2021


On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 1:46 PM Stephen Ellison <S.Ellison using lgcgroup.com>
wrote:

>
> Please run the reproducible example provided.
> When you do, you will see that write.csv writes an unnecessary empty
> header field ("") over the row names column. This makes the number of
> header fields equal to the number of columns _including_ row names. That
> causes the original row names to be read as data by read.csv, following the
> rule that the number of header fields determines whether row names are
> present. read.csv  accordingly assumes that the former row names are
> unnamed data, calls the unnamed row names column "X" (or X.1 etc if X
> exists) and then adds new, default, row names _instead of the original row
> names written by write.csv_.
> That's not helpful.
>

This depends on if you are reading the csv via R or something else, I would
imagine. It not being "valid" CSV at all would likely cause some programs
to choke entirely, I expect. I admit that's conjecture though, I don't have
data on that one way or another.

~G

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