[R] stata ==> R - error messages

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 24/04/2009 7:42 AM, Peter Dalgaard wrote:
> Jim Lemon wrote:
>> Rob Bakker wrote:
>>> Dear Sirs,
>>> I am just starting with R and I think it is a great system. Now, I
>>> want to
>>> import Stata datasets (.dta) with read.dta, but receive errormessages
>>> like:
>>>
>>> Error in grep("^(http|ftp|https)://", file) : object "Rklein" not found
>>>
>>> Error in read.dta("Rklein") :
>>>   unable to open file: 'No such file or directory'
>>> this happens when I use ""
>>>
>>> What is the problem and how can I solve it?
>>>   
>> Hi Rob,
>> Looks like you're on Windows, and you have probably fallen victim to the
>> Microsoft  (and Apple) "hide-everything-you-can-from-them" file manager
>> defaults. Your file "Rklein" probably has an extension on it (maybe
>> .dta?) and if you can find that by turning off extension hiding, you
>> will probably see the solution immediately.
>>
>> Jim
> 
> Also, notice the function choose.file() which lets browse your way to

The function name is actually file.choose(), which exists on all (?) 
platforms.  There's also a function choose.files(), only on Windows, and 
mainly used for choosing multiple files (but it has a few other 
Windows-only differences from file.choose()).

Duncan Murdoch

> the file in the usual Windows style. If used on its own, then it returns
> the full path to the file, so that you know what to feed to read.dta().
> 
> You can short-circuit by using read.dta(choose.file()), but if you do it
> in a script, then you need to do the browsing every time you run the
> script.
>