[R] Errors in reading in txt files

[Jeff Newmiller]

Your times are formatted as

01.01.2001-24:00:00

but the default format is

2001-01-01 24:00:00

so you need to specify a format argument with as.POSIXct. Read about format strings in ?strptime.
-- 
Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.

On December 15, 2017 9:21:54 AM PST, lily li <chocold12 at gmail.com> wrote:
>I use the method, df$Time = as.POSIXct(df$Time), but it has the warning
>message:
>Error in as.POSIXlt.character(x, tz, ...) :
>  character string is not in a standard unambiguous format
>
>On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 1:31 PM, MacQueen, Don <macqueen1 at llnl.gov>
>wrote:
>
>> 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]]
>>     >>
>>     >> ______________________________________________
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>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.
>>
>>
>>
>
>	[[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.