[R] Errors in reading in txt files

[MacQueen, Don]

In addition to which, I would recommend

df <- read.table("DATAM", header = TRUE, fill = TRUE, stringsAsFactors=FALSE)

and then converting the Time column to POSIXct date-time values using
  as.POSIXct()
specifying the format using formatting codes found in
  ?strptime
because the times are not in the POSIXct default format.


This example might indicate the idea:

> as.POSIXct('2012-10-12 13:14')
[1] "2012-10-12 13:14:00 PDT"
> class(as.POSIXct('2012-10-12 13:14'))
[1] "POSIXct" "POSIXt" 

-Don

--
Don MacQueen
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
7000 East Ave., L-627
Livermore, CA 94550
925-423-1062
Lab cell 925-724-7509
 
 

On 12/14/17, 11:01 AM, "R-help on behalf of Ista Zahn" <r-help-bounces at r-project.org on behalf of istazahn at gmail.com> wrote:

    On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 1:58 PM, Berend Hasselman <bhh at xs4all.nl> wrote:
    >
    >> On 14 Dec 2017, at 19:36, lily li <chocold12 at gmail.com> wrote:
    >>
    >> Hi R users,
    >>
    >> I have a question about reading from text files. The file has the structure
    >> below:
    >>
    >> Time                            Column1   Column2
    >> 01.01.2001-12:00:00
    >
    > This line does not contain 3 elements; only one.
    > You'll have to fix that line. Delete it, prepend it with a comment character of add enough columns.
    
    I definitely don't recommend that. Instead, read
    
    ?read.table
    
    to learn about the "fill" and "header" arguments.
    
    df = read.table("DATAM", header = TRUE, fill = TRUE)
    
    will probably work.
    
    Best,
    Ista
    
    
    >
    >
    > Berend
    >
    >> 01.01.2001-24:00:00        12             11
    >> 01.02.2001-12:00:00        13             10
    >> 01.02.2001-24:00:00        11             12
    >> 01.03.2001-12:00:00        15             11
    >> 01.03.2001-24:00:00        16             10
    >> ...
    >>
    >> I just use the simple script to open it: df = read.table('DATAM', head=T).
    >>
    >> But it has the error and thus cannot read the file:
    >> Error in scan(file = file, what = what, sep = sep, quote = quote, dec =
    >> dec,  :
    >>  line 1 did not have 3 elements
    >>
    >> How to read it with three fixed columns, and how to read the time format in
    >> the first column correctly? Thanks for your help.
    >>
    >>       [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
    >>
    >> ______________________________________________
    >> R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
    >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
    >> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
    >> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
    >
    > ______________________________________________
    > R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
    > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
    > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
    > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
    
    ______________________________________________
    R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
    https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
    PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
    and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.