[R] write.table error

[Ross Darnell]

OK . Point taken. Here is the original set of commands

> > > write.table(all,file="agree.csv",row.names=F)
> > Error in "rownames<-"(*tmp*, value = row.names(x)) :
> >     length of dimnames[1] not equal to array extent
> > > is.data.frame(all)
> > [1] TRUE
> > > dim(all)
> > [1] 854  18
> > > length(row.names(all))
> > [1] 854

Drop the row.names argument then the traceback
> write.table(all,"agree.csv",sep=",")
Error in "rownames<-"(*tmp*, value = row.names(x)) : 
	length of dimnames[1] not equal to array extent
> traceback()
4: "rownames<-"(*tmp*, value = row.names(x))
3: is.na.data.frame(x)
2: is.na(x)
1: write.table(all, "agree.csv", sep = ",")
> 

Then trying  the is.nadata.frame function

> write.ex <- is.na.data.frame(all)
Error in "rownames<-"(*tmp*, value = row.names(x)) : 
	length of dimnames[1] not equal to array extent
> traceback()
2: "rownames<-"(*tmp*, value = row.names(x))
1: is.na.data.frame(all)

Repeat what is.na.data.frame does


> y <- do.call("cbind",lapply(all,"is.na"))
> rownames(y) <- row.names(all)
Error in "rownames<-"(*tmp*, value = row.names(all)) : 
	length of dimnames[1] not equal to array extent

Let's have a look at "y"

> str(y)
 logi [1:1708, 1:18] FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE ...
 - attr(*, "dimnames")=List of 2
  ..$ : NULL
  ..$ : chr [1:18] "time" "obs" "state1" "state2" ...
>

There is twice as many rows in "y" as there should be. Compare first
854 with second.
 
> sum(y[1:854,]!=y[1:854,])
[1] 0

Why does this happen with this particular data frame! Try each variable

> names(all)
 [1] "time"      "obs"       "state1"    "state2"    "name"      "agree"    
 [7] "symmetric" "Name"      "AWIA1"     "AWIA2"     "AS1"       "AS2"      
[13] "AWAA1"     "AWAA2"     "DA1"       "DA2"       "DR1"       "DR2"      
> ...
> length(all$symmetric)
[1] 1708

This is twice as long as other variables. Why did I think this was
impossible?  Can variables in data.frames by of different length?

> yy <- data.frame(v1=1:10,v2=1:15)
Error in data.frame(v1 = 1:10, v2 = 1:15) : 
	arguments imply differing number of rows: 10, 15
> 

Slightly confused

Thanks for the help

Ross Darnell


<ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk> writes:

> You gien us nothing to reproduce this with, and other examples work.
> R does have debugging tools that would allow you to investigate this.
> In particular, as rownames<- is not actually used in write.table,
> the result of traceback() is the minimum that is needed when reporting an
> error.
> 
> Just one possbility: it should be `row.names=FALSE', and if you had a
> variable called F this might be the explanation.
> 
> On 5 Jul 2002, Ross Darnell wrote:
> 
> > I am getting the following when trying to write a dataframe to a file.
> >
> > I would appreciate any advice to where the problem lies.
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Ross Darnell
> > > write.table(all,file="agree.csv",row.names=F)
> > Error in "rownames<-"(*tmp*, value = row.names(x)) :
> >     length of dimnames[1] not equal to array extent
> > > is.data.frame(all)
> > [1] TRUE
> > > dim(all)
> > [1] 854  18
> > > length(row.names(all))
> > [1] 854
> > >
> > > R.version
> >          _
> > platform i686-pc-linux-gnu
> > arch     i686
> > os       linux-gnu
> > system   i686, linux-gnu
> > status
> > major    1
> > minor    5.0
> > year     2002
> > month    04
> > day      29
> > language R
> > >
> >
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> -- 
> Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
> Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
> University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
> 1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272860 (secr)
> Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

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