[R] Invalid connection error message when trying to write a file

[John Karon]

Thanks for pointing out my error after specifying the destination in the 
file(  ) function.  What you proposed also did not work.
It turns out the solution is to give the file name but not include the path; 
the resulting file is written in the working directory.
The mystery is that including the path had previously work.
John Karon

-----Original Message----- 
From: Uwe Ligges
Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2013 12:30 PM
To: John Karon ; r-help at r-project.org
Subject: Re: [R] Invalid connection error message when trying to write a 
file



On 15.12.2013 20:13, John Karon wrote:
> The response below asks what I actually did.
>
> I defined a function (details omitted; it computes the data frame
> LRtest.out); arguments include "path\\filename.csv" to which I want to
> write a data frame using write.csv(  ).  Repeated executions of the
> function (without the file(  ) and close(  ) instructions) were
> successful until 2 days ago, when I received the error message below.  I
> simplified the code to write a file and received the error message below
> (same message as before) in response to the commands
>
> zz<-file(description="c:\\LRtest.txt","w")
> write.table(LRtest.out, file="c:\\LRtest.txt", sep="\t")
> close(zz)

Wrong, *either* use

write.table(LRtest.out, file="c:\\LRtest.txt", sep="\t")

or

zz <- file(description="c:\\LRtest.txt","w")
write.table(LRtest.out, file=zz, sep="\t")
close(zz)

Best,
Uwe Ligges







>
> Error in file(description = "c:\\LRtest.txt", "w") :
>   cannot open the connection
> In addition: Warning message:
> In file(description = "c:\\LRtest.txt", "w") :
>   cannot open file 'c:\LRtest.txt': Permission denied
>
> This happens whether there is no previous file with that name or an
> essentially empty file with that name.  In previous executions of code
> with a path to a folder, executing the file(  )  command would create an
> empty file.  Now no empty file is created.  The problem persists after
> rebooting the computer.
>
> I also tried writing to the clipboard (description ="clipboard" in the
> file(  ) command); that was unsuccessful, with file="clipboard" or no
> file statement in the write.table(  ) command (Word showed there was
> something to paste, but pasting into an empty Word document did not put
> text into the document; with no file statement, the data frame was
> written to the console).
>
> I question whether there is a setting that forbids writing to a file.
> Information on putting the data frame on the clipboard would also help.
> Thanks for any help.  John Karon
>
> -----Original Message----- From: Uwe Ligges
> Sent: Saturday, December 14, 2013 10:05 AM
> To: J Karon ; r-help at r-project.org
> Subject: Re: [R] Invalid connection error message when trying to write a
> file
>
>
>
> On 13.12.2013 20:11, J Karon wrote:
>> I get an invalid connection method error message when trying to write
>> an R
>> object from a user-defined function to my hard drive (running Windows 7)
>> using write.csv.  I have previously not had this problem with the same
>> user-defined function.  The error message is
>>
>> Error in isOpen(file, "w") : invalid connection
>> In addition: Warning message:
>> In if (file == "") file <- stdout() else if (is.character(file)) { :
>>    the condition has length > 1 and only the first element will be used
>>
>> Using
>> zz<-file(description="path","w")
>> write.csv(  )
>> close(zz)
>>
>> creates an empty file but yields the same error message when I execute
>> write.csv.
>
>
> Please tell us what you actually did.
>
> This works for me:
>
> zz <- file(description="path", "w")
> write.csv(iris, zz)
> close(zz)
>
> Best,
> Uwe Ligges
>
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