R devel - Jun 2005 - write.table confused by rownames/colnames (PR#7941)

Full_Name: Axel Rasche
Version: 2.1.0
OS: Win2000
Submission from: (NULL) (141.14.21.81)


Hi,

write.table does not accept the second statement with
    <col.names = NA, row.names = FALSE>.
I do not see why this should not be possible.

test = matrix(1:4, 2, 2, dimnames = list( c("a","b"),
c("c","d") ))
write.table(test, file = "test.txt", sep = "\t", quote =
FALSE,
	col.names = NA, row.names = FALSE)
write.table(test, file = "test.txt", sep = "\t", quote =
FALSE,
	col.names = NA)
write.table(test, file = "test.txt", sep = "\t", quote =
FALSE,
	col.names = TRUE, row.names = FALSE)
write.table(test, file = "test.txt", sep = "\t", quote =
FALSE,
	col.names = FALSE, row.names = FALSE)

Thanks,
Axel

rasche at molgen.mpg.de wrote:
> Full_Name: Axel Rasche
> Version: 2.1.0
> OS: Win2000
> Submission from: (NULL) (141.14.21.81)
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> write.table does not accept the second statement with
>     <col.names = NA, row.names = FALSE>.
> I do not see why this should not be possible.
> 
> test = matrix(1:4, 2, 2, dimnames = list( c("a","b"),
c("c","d") ))
> write.table(test, file = "test.txt", sep = "\t", quote
= FALSE,
> 	col.names = NA, row.names = FALSE)
 From my point of view one should not expect NA to work, but the help 
page says a "logical" is allowed and gives a correpsonding
"NA" example,
hence it is a bug, either in the help page or in the code.
I'd vote for changing the help and depreciating NA for 
col.names/row.names, because I do not know what NA is expected to do and 
therefore I could not provide any bugfix for the code ...

Uwe Ligges



> write.table(test, file = "test.txt", sep = "\t", quote
= FALSE,
> 	col.names = NA)
> write.table(test, file = "test.txt", sep = "\t", quote
= FALSE,
> 	col.names = TRUE, row.names = FALSE)
> write.table(test, file = "test.txt", sep = "\t", quote
= FALSE,
> 	col.names = FALSE, row.names = FALSE)
> 
> Thanks,
> Axel
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel

It seems that you are the one who is confused: the help file says

      By default there is no column name for a column of row names.  If
      'col.names = NA' a blank column name is added.

If there are no row names, there is no point in adding a blank column name 
for them.  So what did *you* think it would do?

On Wed, 15 Jun 2005 rasche at molgen.mpg.de wrote:
> Full_Name: Axel Rasche
> Version: 2.1.0
> OS: Win2000
> Submission from: (NULL) (141.14.21.81)
>
>
> write.table does not accept the second statement with
>    <col.names = NA, row.names = FALSE>.
> I do not see why this should not be possible.
>
> test = matrix(1:4, 2, 2, dimnames = list( c("a","b"),
c("c","d") ))
> write.table(test, file = "test.txt", sep = "\t", quote
= FALSE,
> 	col.names = NA, row.names = FALSE)
> write.table(test, file = "test.txt", sep = "\t", quote
= FALSE,
> 	col.names = NA)
> write.table(test, file = "test.txt", sep = "\t", quote
= FALSE,
> 	col.names = TRUE, row.names = FALSE)
> write.table(test, file = "test.txt", sep = "\t", quote
= FALSE,
> 	col.names = FALSE, row.names = FALSE)

-- 
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

Hello,

Alright, I did not look at it that way I admit. I built a matrix with 
multiple row names (as a data.frame). Confusion started when exporting 
this as a spread-sheet.
Now it all works fine.

Thanks and sorry for the false alarm,
Axel

Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
> It seems that you are the one who is confused: the help file says
> 
>      By default there is no column name for a column of row names.  If
>      'col.names = NA' a blank column name is added.
> 
> If there are no row names, there is no point in adding a blank column 
> name for them.  So what did *you* think it would do?
> 
> On Wed, 15 Jun 2005 rasche at molgen.mpg.de wrote:
> 
>> Full_Name: Axel Rasche
>> Version: 2.1.0
>> OS: Win2000
>> Submission from: (NULL) (141.14.21.81)
>>
>>
>> write.table does not accept the second statement with
>>    <col.names = NA, row.names = FALSE>.
>> I do not see why this should not be possible.
>>
>> test = matrix(1:4, 2, 2, dimnames = list(
c("a","b"), c("c","d") ))
>> write.table(test, file = "test.txt", sep = "\t",
quote = FALSE,
>>     col.names = NA, row.names = FALSE)
>> write.table(test, file = "test.txt", sep = "\t",
quote = FALSE,
>>     col.names = NA)
>> write.table(test, file = "test.txt", sep = "\t",
quote = FALSE,
>>     col.names = TRUE, row.names = FALSE)
>> write.table(test, file = "test.txt", sep = "\t",
quote = FALSE,
>>     col.names = FALSE, row.names = FALSE)
> 
> 
> 
-- 
*******************************************
Dipl. Math. ETH Axel Rasche
Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Genetics
Department Lehrach (Vertebrate Genomics)
Ihnestrasse 63-73
D-14195 Berlin-Dahlem
GERMANY

Tel. ++49-30-8413-1289
Fax  ++49-30-8413-1380