[R] Very confused with class

[Dan Davison]

Hi Rich,


Richard M. Heiberger wrote:
> 
> Dan,
> 
> The real problem is the use of csv files.  csv files don't handle missing
> values
> ("#VALUE" is most likely from Excel), dates, or other complications very
> well.
> 
> Read your Excel file directly into
> R with one of the packages designed specifically for that purpose.  I
> recommend
> RExcel (Windows only) which allows complete two-way communication between
> R
> and Excel.
> Missing values and dates are handled correctly.
> You can download the RExcelInstaller package from CRAN.
> 

I'm sure RExcel is an excellent technology. However, it is an unnecessarily
complex technology in this instance. What I was trying to do was help the
original poster read in tabular data stored in a standard text format, which
is a fundamental skill for any R programmer. In general, I would encourage
people (beginners especially) to avoid the use of hi-tech solutions, when
simple text-based solutions suffice. But when people do need to have more
sophisticated integration of R and e.g. Excel, it's nice that the tools
exist.

Dan


Richard M. Heiberger wrote:
> 
> 
> Rich
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
> 
> 

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