[R] Header in read.table() function

[David Winsemius]

On Feb 3, 2010, at 4:08 PM, Paul Evans wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I wanted to read in a table that had hyphens in the header / column  
> names. When I read it in however, it replaces the hyphens with a  
> dot. Which parameter in the read.table function do I need to set to  
> change this behaviour?
> Example code:
> jm <- matrix(1:4,2,2)
> rownames(jm) <- c('a','b')
> colnames(jm) <- c('a-1','a-2')
> write.table(jm,'tjm.out',row.names=T,col.names=T,sep='\t')
>
> mm <- read.table('tjm.out',row.names=1,header=T,sep='\t',colClasses  
> = "character")
> print(mm)
>  a.1 a.2
> a   1   3
> b   2   4
> I would like 'a-1' 'a-2' in the header and not a.1 & a.2
> thanks.

If you must, which will mean more typing on your part and probably  
lead to obscure errors, set check.names to FALSE:

 > mm <- read.table('tjm.out',row.names=1,header=T,sep='\t',colClasses  
= "character", check.names=FALSE)
 > print(mm)
   a-1 a-2
a   1   3
b   2   4

>
>
>
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David Winsemius, MD
Heritage Laboratories
West Hartford, CT