[R] loading a file in R in mac OS X

[Marc Schwartz]

On Jul 16, 2009, at 7:40 AM, Michael Knudsen wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 1:32 PM, caballo<jamespitts at hotmail.com>  
> wrote:
>
>> Error in file(file, "r") : cannot open the connection
>> In addition: Warning message:
>> In file(file, "r") :
>> cannot open file 'c:\harddrivename\users\username\desktop 
>> \schools.txt':
>> No such file or directory.
>>
>> I'm guessing that there's a different way to enter the path name on a
>> macintosh?
>
> There is no such thing as a c-drive on a Mac. Try this location  
> instead:
>
> ~/Desktop/schools.txt
>
> and note that Mac is case-sensitive.

Actually, by default, the OSX HFS+ file system is not case sensitive:

  MacBookPro:~ ~$ ls -la /users/marcschwartz/desktop/
total 32
drwx------+  5 marcschwartz  staff    170 Jul 16 07:49 .
drwxr-xr-x+ 54 marcschwartz  staff   1836 Jul 16 07:48 ..
-rw-------@  1 marcschwartz  staff  15364 Jul 16 07:49 .DS_Store
-rw-r--r--   1 marcschwartz  staff      0 Jul 16 07:49 MYFILE
drwxr-xr-x  51 marcschwartz  staff   1734 Jul 11 16:34 Test

  MacBookPro:~ ~$ ls -la /Users/marcschwartz/Desktop/
total 32
drwx------+  5 marcschwartz  staff    170 Jul 16 07:49 .
drwxr-xr-x+ 54 marcschwartz  staff   1836 Jul 16 07:48 ..
-rw-------@  1 marcschwartz  staff  15364 Jul 16 07:49 .DS_Store
-rw-r--r--   1 marcschwartz  staff      0 Jul 16 07:49 MYFILE
drwxr-xr-x  51 marcschwartz  staff   1734 Jul 11 16:34 Test

  MacBookPro:~ ~$ ls -la /users/marcschwartz/desktop/MYFILE
-rw-r--r--  1 marcschwartz  staff  0 Jul 16 07:49 /users/marcschwartz/ 
desktop/MYFILE

  MacBookPro:~ ~$ ls -la /users/marcschwartz/desktop/myfile
-rw-r--r--  1 marcschwartz  staff  0 Jul 16 07:49 /users/marcschwartz/ 
desktop/myfile


You can make it so using the Disk Utility, but there are risks to  
doing so, in that certain OSX applications will fail. See:

   http://www.macfixit.com/staticpages/index.php?page=2003111009264885

HTH,

Marc Schwartz