[R] packaged datasets in .csv format (David Firth)

[David Firth]

Many thanks to those who replied to my question.

Dirk's suggestion, to use a .R file in the "data" directory of the  
package, specifying how the .csv should be read, works fine as an  
answer to the question about making comma-separated files available.

Uwe's answer to my other question (; vs ,), ie compatibility with  
existing R packages, is well taken!

Cheers,
David

On Thursday, Jul 10, 2003, at 12:25 Europe/London, Uwe Ligges wrote:

> Andreas Christmann wrote:
>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- 
>>> -
>>>
>>> Message: 1
>>> Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 10:53:27 +0100
>>> From: David Firth <david.firth at nuffield.oxford.ac.uk>
>>> Subject: [R] packaged datasets in .csv format
>>> To: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
>>> Message-ID:
>>>     <307D34CE-B1F3-11D7-A8D2-0050E4C03977 at nuffield.oxford.ac.uk>
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
>>>
>>> A couple of questions in connection with using .csv format to  
>>> include data in a package:
>>>
>>> First, the background.  The data() function loads data from .csv  
>>> ("comma-separated values") files using
>>>
>>>    read.table(..., header = TRUE, sep = ";")
>>>
>>> But ?read.table says
>>>
>>>       ## To write a CSV file for input to Excel one might use
>>>       write.table(x, file = "foo.csv", sep = ",", col.names = NA)
>>>       ## and to read this file back into R one needs
>>>       read.table("file.csv", header = TRUE, sep = ",", row.names=1)
>>>
>>> As a result, .csv files created by write.table() as above are not  
>>> read in by data() in the way that might be expected [that is,  
>>> expected by someone who had not read help(data)!]
>>>
>>> Two questions, then:
>>> -- is there some compelling reason for  the use of `sep = ";"' in  
>>> place of `sep = ",", row.names=1'?
>
> Do you really want an answer?
> Today, one reason is compatibility to all the other packages on CRAN.
>
>
>> I prefer ";" instead of "," , because in text variables there are  
>> often ",".
>
> That's why text variables can be quoted.
>
>
>>> -- if I want to maintain a dataset in .csv format, for use both in R  
>>> and in other systems such as Excel, SPSS, etc, what is the best way  
>>> to go about it?
>
> When regularly using that many systems on the same data sets, it might  
> be worth using a database system, e.g. MySQL.
>
> BTW: R *and* Excel *and* (for sure, but I haven't tested) also SPSS  
> can read a couple of different ASCII formatted files, so there are  
> quite a lot possible formats.
>
> Uwe Ligges
>
>
>> Depends. Perhaps it is best to check it out for the software packages
>> and the versions of the software packages you are using.
> >
>> Andreas Christmann
>>>
>>> Any advice would be much appreciated.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> David
>
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