[R] Files with Missing Data

[Erik Iverson]

Norman Jessup wrote:
> I'm a new R user so this is possibly a naive question.  I'm trying to 
> load an external CSV file into a dataframe using:
> 
>   df_name<-read.table("myfile.csv")
> 
> myfile.csv should have 5 elements per row, though a percentage are 
> missing the last two elements (the commas are present as placemarkers).  
> However, R does not create the dataset but returns the message:
> 
>     line 1 did not have 2 elements
> 
> but examining the file shows that it does.  These are the first 5 rows:
> 
> DARWIN,NT,800,-12.461334,130.841904
> ALAWA,NT,810,-12.37896,130.874226
> BRINKIN,NT,810,-12.364533,130.869394
> CASUARINA,NT,810,-12.373112,130.883619
> COCONUT GROVE,NT,810,-12.397685,130.852324
> 
> Is R complaining because the first two elements of each row are not 
> numeric, or am I doing something else wrong?
> Thanks for your suggestions

You can use Peter's advice; also note there is a read.csv function.  A thorough 
reading of the ?read.table help page is very useful I've found.

There is also an R data import/export manual on CRAN.