[R] Understanding read.csv error message

[MacQueen, Don]

small typo in previous: should be
  quote=""
(I left behind a single quote by mistake)

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

On 8/17/18, 5:03 PM, "R-help on behalf of MacQueen, Don via R-help" <r-help-bounces using r-project.org on behalf of r-help using r-project.org> wrote:

    Hi Rich,
    
    It's not obvious what would be causing that error from read.csv. But here's what I would probably try:
    
    Add quote='"" to your arguments. The default is to use surround text strings with double quotes, but your file doesn't.
    
    Copy the first few rows into another file and try it. If it succeeds, that would suggest something later on in the file is causing the problem.
    
    The argument sep=','   is redundant for read.csv. In other words, it sets sep for you. I'd try switching to the more general read.table.
    
    Are the NAs in the file indicated by NA between a pair of commas? Or do you have successive commas with nothing between them for NA? Not sure what difference it will make, but it might affect what args you pass to read.table.
    
    Are you absolutely sure there are never any commas in the name?
    
    -Don
    
    --
    Don MacQueen
    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
    7000 East Ave., L-627
    Livermore, CA 94550
    925-423-1062
    Lab cell 925-724-7509
     
     
    
    On 8/17/18, 3:08 PM, "R-help on behalf of Rich Shepard" <r-help-bounces using r-project.org on behalf of rshepard using appl-ecosys.com> wrote:
    
           I have a data file, 'precip_projected.csv,' that starts like this:
        
        name,easting,northing,elev,sampdate,prcp
        Headworks Portland Water,2370575.38427211,199337.634652112,228,2005-01-01,0.59
        Headworks Portland Water,2370575.38427211,199337.634652112,228,2005-01-02,0.08
        Headworks Portland Water,2370575.38427211,199337.634652112,228,2005-01-03,0.1
        Headworks Portland Water,2370575.38427211,199337.634652112,228,2005-01-04,0
        Headworks Portland Water,2370575.38427211,199337.634652112,228,2005-01-05,0
        Headworks Portland Water,2370575.38427211,199337.634652112,228,2005-01-06,0.02
        Headworks Portland Water,2370575.38427211,199337.634652112,228,2005-01-07,0.05
        Headworks Portland Water,2370575.38427211,199337.634652112,228,2005-01-08,0.1
        Headworks Portland Water,2370575.38427211,199337.634652112,228,2005-01-09,0
        Headworks Portland Water,2370575.38427211,199337.634652112,228,2005-01-10,0.02
        
           There are a bunch of NAs in the data file.
        
           The command to read it produces an error:
        
        rainfall <- read.csv('../data/precipitation/precip_projected.csv', header = T, sep = ',', as.is = T)
        
        Error in `$<-.data.frame`(`*tmp*`, date, value = numeric(0)) :
           replacement has 0 rows, data has 113569
        
           Is the error generated by finding a date that looks like the number zero
        or by a prcp value of zero?
        
           BTW, I get the same error if I specify stringsAsFactors = F.
        
        TIA,
        
        Rich
        
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    ______________________________________________
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