[R] R-Help

[David Winsemius]

On Feb 6, 2010, at 3:29 PM, Ravi Ramaswamy wrote:

> Hi - I am not familiar with R.  Could I ask you a quick question?
>
> When I read a file like this, I get an error.  Not sure what I am  
> doing
> wrong.  I use a MAC.  How do I specify a full path name for a file  
> in R?  Or
> do files have to reside locally?
>
>> KoreaAuto <- read.table(""/Users/

I think the opening and clsing quotes meant that you supplied an empty  
string to the file argument.

> raviramaswamy/Documents/Rutgers/STT 586/HW1 Data.txt"")
> Error: unexpected numeric constant in "KoreaAuto <-
> read.table(""/Users/raviramaswamy/Documents/Rutgers/STT 586"
>>
>

Using single instances of either sort of quote ( " or ' ) on the ends  
of strings should work. If you drag a file from a Finder window to the  
R-console you should get a fully specified file path and name.

> Seems like the working directory is
>> getwd()
> [1] "/Users/raviramaswamy"

 > rd <- read.table(file="/Users/davidwinsemius/Downloads/ 
meminfo.csv", sep=",", header=TRUE)
 > rd
      time      RSS      VSZ  MEM
1       1  3027932  3141808  4.5
2       2  3028572  3141808  4.5
3       3  3030208  3141808  4.5
4       4  3033332  3150004  4.5
5       5  3035036  3150004  4.5

You can also shorten the Users/<username> part to "~"
 > rd <- read.table(file="~/Downloads/meminfo.csv", sep=",",  
header=TRUE)


>>
>
> so I said this and still got an error
>
>> KoreaAuto <- read.table(/Documents/Rutgers/HW1Data)
> Error: unexpected '/' in "KoreaAuto <- read.table(/"

But using no quotes will definitely not work. (And that was not a full  
path name anyway.)

>
>
> Could someone please help me with the correct syntax?
>
> Thanks
>
> Ravi
>
>    Year   AO      GNP          CP   OP
> 01    1974 .0022     183          2322 189
> 02    1975 .0024     238          2729 206
> 03    1976 .0027     319          3069 206
> 04    1977 .0035     408          2763 190
> 05    1978 .0050     540          2414 199
> 06    1979 .0064     676          2440 233
> 07    1980 .0065     785          2430 630
> 08    1981 .0069     944          2631 740
> 09    1982 .0078     1036         3155 740
> 10    1983 .0095     1171         3200 660
>

David Winsemius, MD
Heritage Laboratories
West Hartford, CT