[R] Importing IDL Structures

[Peter Dalgaard]

Michael Lefsky <lefsky at gmail.com> writes:

> I am trying to get started with R, but before I do, I need to find a
> way to import my existing datasets, which are currently stored as
> arrays of IDL structures (RSI's IDL, not the other one).
> 
> The problem I has is this: the IDL structures contain scalar items, as
> well as n-dimensional arrays. I can export the data in a number of
> ways, including as separate files for scalars and for each of the
> arrays.
> 
> Has anyone tackled this problem? If not, can you advise me on the best
> data structure(s) to hold such data in R? Data frames seemed to be the
> most obvious choice, but I prefer the syntax used for lists (it is
> more similar to IDL), if that is possible. And of course (as I said in
> a previous message) there is the question of how to import the data
> into the structure (it looks like I will need to export each array
> separately , import them into R and then assemble the final
> structure).

I don't know IDL, but it seems to do HDF. Would the hdf5 package help,
I wonder?

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