R help - Jan 2006 - Saving data in an R package - how to maintain that t avariable is a 'factor' when it is coded as 1, 2, 3...

I have a .txt file obtained by saving a data frame in which the first four
columns are factors (but represented as 1,2,3 etc). The first four lines are
 
"Pig" "Evit" "Cu" "Litter"
"Start" "Weight" "Feed" "Time"
"4601" "1" "1" "1" 26.5 26.5 NA 1
"4601" "1" "1" "1" 26.5 27.59999
5.200005 2
"4601" "1" "1" "1" 26.5 36.5 17.6 3
"4601" "1" "1" "1" 26.5 40.29999 28.5 4

I would like to include that data set in an R-package. When I load the data from
the package the first four columns are read in as numeric variables. This is
consistent with the documentation of read.table - but it is not what I want! I
can of course change the coding of the variables, but there ought to be another
way. Can anyone help me on that?
Best regards
S??ren H??jsgaard

colClasses
> x <- read.table('clipboard', header=T,
colClasses=c(rep('factor',4),rep('numeric',4)))
> x
   Pig Evit Cu Litter Start   Weight      Feed Time
1 4601    1  1      1  26.5 26.50000        NA    1
2 4601    1  1      1  26.5 27.59999  5.200005    2
3 4601    1  1      1  26.5 36.50000 17.600000    3
4 4601    1  1      1  26.5 40.29999 28.500000    4
> str(x)
`data.frame':   4 obs. of  8 variables:
 $ Pig   : Factor w/ 1 level "4601": 1 1 1 1
 $ Evit  : Factor w/ 1 level "1": 1 1 1 1
 $ Cu    : Factor w/ 1 level "1": 1 1 1 1
 $ Litter: Factor w/ 1 level "1": 1 1 1 1
 $ Start : num  26.5 26.5 26.5 26.5
 $ Weight: num  26.5 27.6 36.5 40.3
 $ Feed  : num    NA  5.2 17.6 28.5
 $ Time  : num  1 2 3 4
>


On 1/13/06, Søren Højsgaard <Soren.Hojsgaard@agrsci.dk>
wrote:
>
> I have a .txt file obtained by saving a data frame in which the first four
> columns are factors (but represented as 1,2,3 etc). The first four lines
are
>
> "Pig" "Evit" "Cu" "Litter"
"Start" "Weight" "Feed" "Time"
> "4601" "1" "1" "1" 26.5 26.5 NA 1
> "4601" "1" "1" "1" 26.5 27.59999
5.200005 2
> "4601" "1" "1" "1" 26.5 36.5 17.6 3
> "4601" "1" "1" "1" 26.5 40.29999
28.5 4
>
> I would like to include that data set in an R-package. When I load the
> data from the package the first four columns are read in as numeric
> variables. This is consistent with the documentation of read.table - but
> it is not what I want! I can of course change the coding of the variables,
> but there ought to be another way. Can anyone help me on that?
> Best regards
> Søren Højsgaard
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide!
> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>


--
Jim Holtman
Cincinnati, OH
+1 513 247 0281

What the problem you are trying to solve?

	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

?read.table, see argument colClasses.

You can use a .R wrapper to a .tab file in the data directory of a 
package.  Or, perhaps better, include it as a .rda file.

On Fri, 13 Jan 2006, S?ren H?jsgaard wrote:
> I have a .txt file obtained by saving a data frame in which the first four
columns are factors (but represented as 1,2,3 etc). The first four lines are
>
> "Pig" "Evit" "Cu" "Litter"
"Start" "Weight" "Feed" "Time"
> "4601" "1" "1" "1" 26.5 26.5 NA 1
> "4601" "1" "1" "1" 26.5 27.59999
5.200005 2
> "4601" "1" "1" "1" 26.5 36.5 17.6 3
> "4601" "1" "1" "1" 26.5 40.29999
28.5 4
>
> I would like to include that data set in an R-package. When I load the data
from the package the first four columns are read in as numeric variables. This
is consistent with the documentation of read.table - but it is not what I want!
I can of course change the coding of the variables, but there ought to be
another way. Can anyone help me on that?
> Best regards
> S?ren H?jsgaard
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide!
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>
-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595