[R] read.table bug

[Peter Dalgaard BSA]

Li Dongfeng <mavip5 at inet.polyu.edu.hk> writes:

> Suppose we have a data file containing:
> 
> "Smith, John", 120, 90
> "Thomson, Peter", 110, 85
> 
> there are 3 variables in it. If we use 
> 
> x <- read.table("tmp.txt", sep=",")
> 
> to read the data to a data.frame,
> the result will be 4 columns.
> Splus 4.0 have no problem with this kind
> of data.

Splus 3.4 has:

> read.table("data", sep=",")
               V2  V3 V4 
  "Smith   John\" 120 90
"Thomson  Peter\" 110 85

i.e. 3 variables but with row.names '"Smith' and '"Thomson'

Or, closer to what R does:

> read.table("data", sep=",",row.names=NULL)
         V1       V2  V3 V4 
1   \"Smith   John\" 120 90
2 \"Thomson  Peter\" 110 85

By its definition, this is what sep=',' must do, but it obviously will
not handle all CSV files properly. Anyone want to write a read.csv()
function or something of the sorts? It would be very useful.

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Blegdamsvej 3  
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     2200 Cph. N   
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph: (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk)             FAX: (+45) 35327907
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