[R] help with read.table() function

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 1/29/2006 11:28 AM, oliver wee wrote:
> hi, 
> 
> Sorry again to bother you, but I got the file.choose()
> to work. Thanks for the help there.
> 
> Unfortunately I encountered a new problem. After I
> selected the data, I got this error message:
> 
> Error in scan(file = file, what = what, sep = sep,
> quote = quote, dec = dec,  : 
>         line 1 did not have 11 elements
> In addition: Warning message:
> incomplete final line found by readTableHeader on
> 'D:\Oliver\Professional\Studies\Time Series
> Analysis\spdc2693.data.txt' 
> 
> my time series data looks like this...
> 
> ------------
> Standard and Poor's 500 Index closing values from 1926
> to 1993.
> 
>   Date       Index
>   260101     12.76
>   260108     12.78
>   260115     12.52
>   260122     12.45
>   260129     12.74
>   260205     12.87
>   260212     12.87
>   260219     12.74
>   260226     12.18
>   260305     11.99
>   260312     12.15
>   260319     11.64
>   260326     11.46
> ...
> (and so on)
> ----------
> 
> Should I insert additional attributes besides header =
> TRUE? 

Yes, you need to tell it to skip over the lines of the comment at the 
start of the file.  That looks like 3 lines (including the blank line), 
so add skip=3 to your read.table call.

Duncan Murdoch

> thanks.
> 
> 
> --- Duncan Murdoch <murdoch at stats.uwo.ca> wrote:
> 
>> On 1/29/2006 10:26 AM, oliver wee wrote:
>>> hello, I have just started using R for doing a
>> project
>>> in time series...
>>>
>>> unfortunately, I am having trouble using the
>>> read.table function for use in reading my data
>> set.
>>> This is what I'm getting:
>>> I inputted:
>>> data <-
>>> read.table("D:/Oliver/Professional/Studies/Time
>> Series
>>> Analysis/spdc2693.data", header = TRUE)
>> Generally it's easier to use the dialogs to specify
>> the filename, e.g.
>>
>> read.table(file.choose(), header=TRUE)
>>
>> Then you shouldn't get the "no such file" message. 
>> If you do, you 
>> should check whether other programs (e.g. notepad)
>> can open the file. 
>> Maybe you don't have read permission?
>>
>> Duncan Murdoch
>>
>>> I got:
>>> Error in file(file, "r") : unable to open
>> connection
>>> In addition: Warning message:
>>> cannot open file
>> 'D:/Oliver/Professional/Studies/Time
>>> Series Analysis/spdc2693.data', reason 'No such
>> file
>>> or directory'
>>>
>>> as I am just a novice programmer, I really would
>>> appreciate help from you guys. Is there a need to
>>> setpath in R, like in java or something like
>> that...
>>> I am using the windows version btw. 
>>>
>>> I have also tried to put the file in the work
>>> directory of R, so that I only typed 
>>> data <- read.table("spdc2693.data", header = TRUE)
>>> Again, it won't work, with the same error message.
>>>
>>> I would appreciate any help. thanks again.
>>>
>>> ______________________________________________
>>> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
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>>> PLEASE do read the posting guide!
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>>
>>
> 
> 
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