[R] error in importing text files
Eric McKibben
EMcKibb at clemson.edu
Mon May 18 21:59:05 CEST 2009
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the reply. My initial thought was just as you indicated, one of
the rows must be missing an element. Interestingly, all of the rows in that
text file had 8 columns. I went directly to the line in the text file
indicated in the error and there was nothing unusual about that line as far
as I could tell.
On a related note, is it possible to import one set of characters at a time
to create a series of vectors that I could then bind together into a data
frame? For example, lets say I want the first 4 characters in a column that
contains the following data 20080204131646. Could I assign these characters
to a vector called year? Could I then assign characters five and six to
another vector called day? If so, how do I do this?
Thanks again,
Eric S McKibben
Industrial-Organizational Psychology Graduate Student
Clemson University
Clemson, SC
----- Original Message -----
From: <Steve_Friedman at nps.gov>
To: "Eric McKibben" <EMcKibb at CLEMSON.EDU>
Cc: <r-help at r-project.org>; <r-help-bounces at r-project.org>
Sent: Monday, May 18, 2009 11:01 AM
Subject: Re: [R] error in importing text files
> Eric,
>
> The error suggests that the file has an inconsistent number of
> attributes. You should inspect the file to make sure that each line has
> the same number of expected attributes (columns). If one or more is
> missing, it suggests that the data collection process from the Palm Pilot
> is not what you expect it to be. Perhaps, participants, just didn't answer
> all of the questions or something like that.
>
>
>
> Steve Friedman Ph. D.
> Spatial Statistical Analyst
> Everglades and Dry Tortugas National Park
> 950 N Krome Ave (3rd Floor)
> Homestead, Florida 33034
>
> Steve_Friedman at nps.gov
> Office (305) 224 - 4282
> Fax (305) 224 - 4147
>
>
>
> "Eric McKibben"
> <EMcKibb at clemson.
> edu> To
> Sent by: <r-help at r-project.org>
> r-help-bounces at r- cc
> project.org
> Subject
> [R] error in importing text files
> 05/18/2009 10:42
> AM AST
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Hello All:
> I am very new to R and am trying to import some (107) text files into R
> while simultaneously manipulating the data into a structure that I can
> use.
> Below is a description of what I am trying to ultimately accomplish.
> However, I find that I am unable to even read one file into R using the
> read.table function. I get the following error:
>> test<-read.table("test4.txt")
> Error in scan(file, what, nmax, sep, dec, quote, skip, nlines, na.strings,
> :
> line 16 did not have 8 elements
>
> So, I would like to resolve the error first, and then ultimately
> accomplish
> the goal outlined below. I understand that my ultimate goal may require
> multiple steps. I am open to that.
>
>
> First, a little background: Data were collected from 107 participants on
> palm pilots. Participants were randomly beeped 5 times throughout the day
> for 5 days resulting in a total of 25 measurement occasions. Participants
> responded to beeps only when they were able to (not in class, driving,
> etc). Thus, most participants completed far less than 25 measurement
> occasions. During each measurement occasion participants responded to 32
> questions by moving a slider on a 100 point scale. The palms recorded the
> date, time, palm pilot ID number, response to the beep (non-response =
> -32767), question number, response latency in milliseconds, response to
> each question, and three addtiional data points of no interest. The data
> are arranged in an unstacked (long) text file such that each line contains
> all of the above information and there are 34 (32 responses plus 2 extra
> lines of meaningless data) lines per measurement occasion (upto 850 lines
> of data if all 34 lines are present !
> for all 25 measurment occasions). Below is an example of how the data are
> arranged.
>
> 20080204131646 2 32 560 63 6 0
> ""
> 20080204131646 2 33 152 -1 7 0
> ""
> 20080204150043 2 -32767 0 9999 0 65535
> ""
> 20080204182117 2 1 283 -1 7 0
> ""
> 20080204182117 2 2 838 34 6 0
> ""
> 20080204182117 2 3 266 36 6 0
> ""
> Year/Month/Day/Time Palm ID Response/Q# Latency Response 3
> meangingless columns The dataset presented above begins with question
> 32
> of one measurement occasion on Febraury 4, 2008 taken at 13:16:46. The
> next line (33) is in the datafile because participants had to click a
> button to exit the measurement occasion. You then see the beginning of
> another measurement occasion (20080204192117) in which the participant did
> not respond (-32767). The next measurement occasion begins on the next
> line which actually starts with response 2 because participants were
> required to read a screen and click through prior to answering any
> questions. Thus, anytime participants simply read an instruction page
> responses are coded as a -1. What I would like to do is write code to
> automatically import these 107 files into R and structure them
> appropriately while importing them. Furthermore, I would like for the
> code
> to use conditional statements so that whenever it encounters a -32767!
> it inserts 32 variables (columns) with missing data and whenever it
> encounters a -1 it deletes that column all together. I would also like
> the
> code to separate the combined year/month/day/time column into 4 separate
> columns (year, month, day, time). Finally, I would like the code to stack
> the 32 responses during each measurement occasion so that I have 32
> columns
> of reponses plus columns for year, month, day, and latency, but leave each
> measurment occasion unstacked.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Eric S McKibben
> Industrial-Organizational Psychology Graduate Student
> Clemson University
> Clemson, SC
> [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
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