[R] list indexing problem reading in files from a directory

[Gavin Simpson]

On Tue, 2009-08-11 at 12:45 -0500, stephen sefick wrote:
> I am running into a problem with allocating these files to a list as
> they are read in through a for loop.  I know I am probably doing
> something wrong, but I can't figure out what.  I know this is not
> reproducible.  I am ending up with a data frame of the very last file
> to be read in.  I know it is in the indexing, but I can't wrap my head
> around it.
> thanks for all of the help,
> 
> Stephen Sefick

A missing return() or explicit statement about what should be return
from your function.

Your function is not right either. You keep killing df at the start of
each iteration of the for loop so df is a list with a single component
each time.

> 
> 
> #level logger read in
> read.ll <- function(path){
> library(chron)
> library(zoo)
> list.of.files <- list.files(path)
> length.files <- length(list.of.files)
> 	for(i in 1:length.files){
> 	df <- list()

Move the line above outside of the loop, above. Better would be to
allocate storage so you know everything is correct, rather than an empty
list. It doesn't improve speed at all IIRC, but is a bit tidier, so try

df <- vector(mode = "list", length = length.files)

immediately after length.files <- ....

> 	df[[i]] <- read.table(paste(sep="/", path, list.of.files[i]), skip=45)
> 	length.1 <- length(df[[i]][,1])
> 	length.2 <- length(df[[i]][,1])-1
> 	df[[i]] <- df[[i]][-c(length.1, length.2),]
> 	df[[i]] <- data.frame(chron(as.character(df[[i]][,1]),
> as.character(df[[i]][,2]), format=c(dates="Y/m/d", times="H:M:S")),
> as.numeric(df[[i]][,3]), as.numeric(df[[i]][,4]),
> as.factor(list.of.files[[i]]))
> 
> 	}

Here you probably want

return(df)

or just

df

But I prefer return(....) as it is pretty explicit about your intentions
that, in this case, 'df' is what you want the function to return.

You function is probably return the last value of the for loop, but as I
say, your loop can't possibly work as you keep killing the list so it
will only ever contain a single processed data.frame.

You could check this yourself by debugging, by:

debug(read.ll)

Then call your function and step through, and at each stage in the loop,
see what df contains. If you do this on the function as you posted,
you'll quickly see what the problem is.

HTH

G

> }
> 
> a <- read.ll("C:/Documents and Settings/Feminella
> Lab/Desktop/WB_LL_Data/Wolf Bay Data/Raw solinist data/Compensated by
> Brad")
> 
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