[R] help with read.table() function

[Gabor Grothendieck]

Normally one expects stdin to be the default on command line
programs and something like file.choose to be the default on GUI
programs and this would break that expectation.

If there were a GUI version of read.table then that would reasonbly
have file.choose as the default.

On 1/29/06, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch at stats.uwo.ca> wrote:
> 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.
> >>>
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> >>
> >>
> >
> >
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