[R] Working around 256 byte variable names? + trouble opening large file

[A Singh]

:)
Well that does make even more sense.

Is there a way of fixing the unmatched quote problem though?
I do not have any clue as to how it can be done.

Will remaking the original file, and then re-reading it in help?



--On 21 September 2009 16:17 -0400 David Winsemius <dwinsemius at comcast.net> 
wrote:

>
> On Sep 21, 2009, at 4:04 PM, A Singh wrote:
>
>> Dear R users,
>>
>> I am trying to read in a file with 105 columns, and when trying to
>> attach it, get an error as follows:
>>
>>> vc1<-read.table("P:\\R\\Everything-I.txt", header=T, sep=" ",
>>> dec=".",
>> na.strings=NA, strip.white=T)
>>> attach(vc1)
>> Error in attach(vc1) : variable names are limited to 256 bytes
>>
>> Is there a way to get around this, and make R accept the given
>> variable names? Or will I have to shorten them?
>>
> It's my guess that you have an unmatched quote in your header  somewhere.
> The error is reported when the length of a SINGLE variable  name is over
> the 256 character limit, and not when the total number of  characters in
> all of the variable names is over 256. Shirley, you  cannot have a
> variable name that want to be that long.
>
>> Also, when I try to read in a much larger file with 430 columns, I
>> get the error:
>>
>> Error in scan(file, what, nmax, sep, dec, quote, skip, nlines,
>> na.strings, :
>> line 397 did not have 431 elements
>>
>> Is it that R isn't dealing too well with Excel-converted-to-text
>> files? Is it a function of file size?
>
> R is not the problem. It is capable of "filling".
>
>>
>> I have double-checked the 430 column file and all data seems to be
>> in place.
>
> Again, probably a misplaced quote character.
>
> --
>
> David Winsemius, MD
> Heritage Laboratories
> West Hartford, CT
>



----------------------
A Singh
Aditi.Singh at bristol.ac.uk
School of Biological Sciences
University of Bristol