[R] Diagnostic and helper functions for defective & hard-to-import files

[David Winsemius]

On Jan 29, 2014, at 7:27 PM, Andrew Hoerner wrote:

> Thanks, Duncan!
> 
> I installed a hex viewer -- did not realize there was also one in R.
> 
> I found the documentation for the individual showNonASCII and
> showNonASCIIFile functions, but I could not find the usual package PDF. The
> tools package does not seem to be listed on cran in the alphabetical list
> of packages, though I did find an undated HTML version. Am I looking in the
> wrong place?
> 
> Warmest regards, andrewH

It's part of the ordinary base installation . This is its DESCRIPTION file.

Package: tools
Version: 3.0.2
Priority: base
Title: Tools for Package Development
Author: R Core Team
Maintainer: R Core Team <R-core at r-project.org>
Description: Tools for package development, administration and documentation
License: Part of R 3.0.2
Built: R 3.0.2; x86_64-apple-darwin10.8.0; 2013-09-25 11:51:01 UTC; unix

Just as you will not find `utils` or `stats`. They do get their own directory under your library of system packages.

-- 
David.

> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 3:53 AM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan at gmail.com>wrote:
> 
>> On 14-01-28 11:43 PM, andrewH wrote:> Hi Folks!
>> 
>>> I have been writing a small set of utilities for dealing with files that
>> are
>>> hard to open correctly for one reason or another, especially because they
>>> are too big for memory, non-rectangular, or contain odd characters or
>>> unexpected codings, or all of these things together. Today it suddenly
>> hit
>>> me that this has probably been done, done better, and upgraded to package
>>> form a dozen times already. There were pointers to a couple functions
>> useful
>>> in this regard in the Core Import/Export document.  But my effort to
>> come up
>>> with search terms that were productive of such packages was unsuccessful.
>>> 
>>> I would be grateful if someone would point me toward such a package or
>>> packages if they exist.
>>> 
>> 
>> The hexView package is useful for figuring out what's there after you have
>> trouble reading something, or figuring out how to read an unknown file type.
>> 
>> The showNonASCII and showNonASCIIFile functions in the tools package are
>> also helpful.
>> 
>> I don't know of other examples.
>> 
>> Duncan Murdoch
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> J. Andrew Hoerner
> Director, Sustainable Economics Program
> Redefining Progress
> (510) 507-4820
> 
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> 
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David Winsemius
Alameda, CA, USA