R devel - Feb 2019 - Bug Report: read.table with UTF-8 encoded file imports infinity symbol as Integer 8

I can confirm that it doesn't happen on Ubuntu 18.04.1 so Peter is
most likely correct; it looks like its Windows specific.

On Thu, 7 Feb 2019 at 12:55, peter dalgaard <pdalgd at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> This doesn't seem to be happening on MacOS, neither in Terminal nor
RStudio, (R 3.5.1, R-devel, R-patched). So probably Windows specific.
>
> -pd
>
> > On 7 Feb 2019, at 11:17 , David Byrne <david.byrne222 at
gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Bug
> > Using read.table(file, encoding="UTF-8") to import a UTF-8
encoded
> > file containing the infinity symbol (' ? ') results in the
infinity
> > symbol imported as the number 8. Other Unicode characters seem
> > unaffected, example, Zhe: ?
> >
> > Expected Behavior:
> > The imported data.frame should represent the infinity symbol as the
> > expected 'Inf' so that normal mathematical operations can be
processed
> >
> > Stack Overflow Post:
> > I created a question on Stack Overflow where one other member was able
> > to reproduce the same issues I was having. This question can be found
> > at:
> >
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/54522196/r-read-table-with-utf-8-encoded-file-reads-infinity-symbol-as-8-int
> >
> > Method to Reproduce - 1:
> > A simple method to reproduce this issues is to use R-Studio: In the
> > console, type the following:
> >> read.table(text=" ?", encoding="UTF-8")
> >
> > The result should be a data.frame with a single value of '8'
> >
> > Repeating the same with ? Results in correct expected behavior
> >
> > Method to Reproduce - 2:
> > Create a .csv file containing the infinity and Zhe characters (I have
> > attached the file for convenience, hopefully it is no rejected by your
> > email service). Launch an interactive session using
> >
> >> r --vanilla
> >
> > Enter the following statement taking care to replace the
> > <path-to-file> with the appropriate one:
> >
> >> read.table("<path-to-file>/unicode_chars.csv",
sep=",", encoding="UTF-8")
> >
> >
> > This should result in a two element data.frame; the first being the
> > incorrect value of 8 with an additional <U+FEFF> and the second
the
> > correct value of Zhe.
> >
> > Note the additional <U+FEFF> prefixed to the front of the
'8'. This
> > appears to be a hidden character for the purposes of letting editors
> > know the encoding. The following link has some explanation however, it
> > states this is caused by excel. The file I created was done so using
> > notepad and not Excel.
> >
> >
https://medium.freecodecamp.org/a-quick-tale-about-feff-the-invisible-character-cd25cd4630e7
> >
> > System Details:
> > OS:
> >> Windows 10.0.17134 Build 17134
> >
> >
> > R Version:
> >> platform       x86_64-w64-mingw32
> >> arch           x86_64
> >> os             mingw32
> >> system         x86_64, mingw32
> >> status
> >> major          3
> >> minor          4.1
> >> year           2017
> >> month          06
> >> day            30
> >> svn rev        72865
> >> language       R
> >> version.string R version 3.4.1 (2017-06-30)
> >> nickname       Single Candle
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>
> --
> Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
> Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
> Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
> Phone: (+45)38153501
> Office: A 4.23
> Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

There seems to be something odd with "?" on Windows (and not only with
read.table)
In native encoding (cp-1252 in my case), "?" gets converted to
"8"

x <-  "?"
Encoding(x)
#> [1] "unknown"
print(x)
#> [1] "8"
charToRaw(x)
#> [1] 38

"?" is indeed "8"

identical(x, "8")
#> [1] TRUE

Everything seems fine if  "?" is UTF-8 encoded.

y <- "\u221E"
Encoding(y)
#> [1] "UTF-8"
print(y)
#> [1]  "?"
charToRaw(y)
#> [1] e2 88 9e

Unless the string is converted back to native encoding.

format(y)
#> [1] "8"

This ought to be "<U+221E>", equivalently to

format("?")
#> [1] "<U+221D>"

Session Info:

si <- sessionInfo()
si$running
#> [1] "Windows 10 x64 (build 17134)"
si$R.version$version.string
#> [1] "R version 3.5.2 (2018-12-20)"
si$locale
#> [1]
"LC_COLLATE=German_Germany.1252;LC_CTYPE=German_Germany.1252;LC_MONETARY=German_Germany.1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=German_Germany.1252"



Am Do., 7. Feb. 2019 um 14:33 Uhr schrieb David Byrne <
david.byrne222 at gmail.com>:
> I can confirm that it doesn't happen on Ubuntu 18.04.1 so Peter is
> most likely correct; it looks like its Windows specific.
>
> On Thu, 7 Feb 2019 at 12:55, peter dalgaard <pdalgd at gmail.com>
wrote:
> >
> > This doesn't seem to be happening on MacOS, neither in Terminal
nor
> RStudio, (R 3.5.1, R-devel, R-patched). So probably Windows specific.
> >
> > -pd
> >
> > > On 7 Feb 2019, at 11:17 , David Byrne <david.byrne222 at
gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > Bug
> > > Using read.table(file, encoding="UTF-8") to import a
UTF-8 encoded
> > > file containing the infinity symbol (' ? ') results in
the infinity
> > > symbol imported as the number 8. Other Unicode characters seem
> > > unaffected, example, Zhe: ?
> > >
> > > Expected Behavior:
> > > The imported data.frame should represent the infinity symbol as
the
> > > expected 'Inf' so that normal mathematical operations can
be processed
> > >
> > > Stack Overflow Post:
> > > I created a question on Stack Overflow where one other member was
able
> > > to reproduce the same issues I was having. This question can be
found
> > > at:
> > >
>
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/54522196/r-read-table-with-utf-8-encoded-file-reads-infinity-symbol-as-8-int
> > >
> > > Method to Reproduce - 1:
> > > A simple method to reproduce this issues is to use R-Studio: In
the
> > > console, type the following:
> > >> read.table(text=" ?", encoding="UTF-8")
> > >
> > > The result should be a data.frame with a single value of
'8'
> > >
> > > Repeating the same with ? Results in correct expected behavior
> > >
> > > Method to Reproduce - 2:
> > > Create a .csv file containing the infinity and Zhe characters (I
have
> > > attached the file for convenience, hopefully it is no rejected by
your
> > > email service). Launch an interactive session using
> > >
> > >> r --vanilla
> > >
> > > Enter the following statement taking care to replace the
> > > <path-to-file> with the appropriate one:
> > >
> > >>
read.table("<path-to-file>/unicode_chars.csv",
sep=",",
> encoding="UTF-8")
> > >
> > >
> > > This should result in a two element data.frame; the first being
the
> > > incorrect value of 8 with an additional <U+FEFF> and the
second the
> > > correct value of Zhe.
> > >
> > > Note the additional <U+FEFF> prefixed to the front of the
'8'. This
> > > appears to be a hidden character for the purposes of letting
editors
> > > know the encoding. The following link has some explanation
however, it
> > > states this is caused by excel. The file I created was done so
using
> > > notepad and not Excel.
> > >
> > >
>
https://medium.freecodecamp.org/a-quick-tale-about-feff-the-invisible-character-cd25cd4630e7
> > >
> > > System Details:
> > > OS:
> > >> Windows 10.0.17134 Build 17134
> > >
> > >
> > > R Version:
> > >> platform       x86_64-w64-mingw32
> > >> arch           x86_64
> > >> os             mingw32
> > >> system         x86_64, mingw32
> > >> status
> > >> major          3
> > >> minor          4.1
> > >> year           2017
> > >> month          06
> > >> day            30
> > >> svn rev        72865
> > >> language       R
> > >> version.string R version 3.4.1 (2017-06-30)
> > >> nickname       Single Candle
> > > ______________________________________________
> > > R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> >
> > --
> > Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
> > Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
> > Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
> > Phone: (+45)38153501
> > Office: A 4.23
> > Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>
	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

Windows Notepad prefixes UTF-8 files with a Byte Order Mark (\UFEFF).
Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_order_mark, this is permitted in
UTF-8, but not required.
I suppose that there are other Windows programs which do likewise (in
addition to Excel and Notepad).

"The Unicode Standard permits the BOM in UTF-8
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8>,[3]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_order_mark#cite_note-3> but does not
require or recommend its use.[4]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_order_mark#cite_note-4> Byte order has
no meaning in UTF-8,[5]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_order_mark#cite_note-utf-8-bom-5> so
its only use in UTF-8 is to signal at the start that the text stream is
encoded in UTF-8, or that it was converted to UTF-8 from a stream that
contained an optional BOM. The standard also does not recommend removing a
BOM when it is there, so that round-tripping between encodings does not
lose information, and so that code that relies on it continues to work.[6]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_order_mark#cite_note-6>[7]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_order_mark#cite_note-7> The IETF
recommends that if a protocol either (a) always uses UTF-8, or (b) has some
other way to indicate what encoding is being used, then it "SHOULD forbid
use of U+FEFF as a signature."[8]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_order_mark#cite_note-rfc3629-8>"

On Thu, Feb 7, 2019 at 8:10 AM Daniel Possenriede <possenriede at
gmail.com>
wrote:
> There seems to be something odd with "?" on Windows (and not only
with
> read.table)
> In native encoding (cp-1252 in my case), "?" gets converted to
"8"
>
> x <-  "?"
> Encoding(x)
> #> [1] "unknown"
> print(x)
> #> [1] "8"
> charToRaw(x)
> #> [1] 38
>
> "?" is indeed "8"
>
> identical(x, "8")
> #> [1] TRUE
>
> Everything seems fine if  "?" is UTF-8 encoded.
>
> y <- "\u221E"
> Encoding(y)
> #> [1] "UTF-8"
> print(y)
> #> [1]  "?"
> charToRaw(y)
> #> [1] e2 88 9e
>
> Unless the string is converted back to native encoding.
>
> format(y)
> #> [1] "8"
>
> This ought to be "<U+221E>", equivalently to
>
> format("?")
> #> [1] "<U+221D>"
>
> Session Info:
>
> si <- sessionInfo()
> si$running
> #> [1] "Windows 10 x64 (build 17134)"
> si$R.version$version.string
> #> [1] "R version 3.5.2 (2018-12-20)"
> si$locale
> #> [1]
>
>
"LC_COLLATE=German_Germany.1252;LC_CTYPE=German_Germany.1252;LC_MONETARY=German_Germany.1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=German_Germany.1252"
>
>
>
> Am Do., 7. Feb. 2019 um 14:33 Uhr schrieb David Byrne <
> david.byrne222 at gmail.com>:
>
> > I can confirm that it doesn't happen on Ubuntu 18.04.1 so Peter is
> > most likely correct; it looks like its Windows specific.
> >
> > On Thu, 7 Feb 2019 at 12:55, peter dalgaard <pdalgd at
gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > This doesn't seem to be happening on MacOS, neither in
Terminal nor
> > RStudio, (R 3.5.1, R-devel, R-patched). So probably Windows specific.
> > >
> > > -pd
> > >
> > > > On 7 Feb 2019, at 11:17 , David Byrne <david.byrne222 at
gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Bug
> > > > Using read.table(file, encoding="UTF-8") to import
a UTF-8 encoded
> > > > file containing the infinity symbol (' ? ') results
in the infinity
> > > > symbol imported as the number 8. Other Unicode characters
seem
> > > > unaffected, example, Zhe: ?
> > > >
> > > > Expected Behavior:
> > > > The imported data.frame should represent the infinity symbol
as the
> > > > expected 'Inf' so that normal mathematical
operations can be
> processed
> > > >
> > > > Stack Overflow Post:
> > > > I created a question on Stack Overflow where one other
member was
> able
> > > > to reproduce the same issues I was having. This question can
be found
> > > > at:
> > > >
> >
>
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/54522196/r-read-table-with-utf-8-encoded-file-reads-infinity-symbol-as-8-int
> > > >
> > > > Method to Reproduce - 1:
> > > > A simple method to reproduce this issues is to use R-Studio:
In the
> > > > console, type the following:
> > > >> read.table(text=" ?",
encoding="UTF-8")
> > > >
> > > > The result should be a data.frame with a single value of
'8'
> > > >
> > > > Repeating the same with ? Results in correct expected
behavior
> > > >
> > > > Method to Reproduce - 2:
> > > > Create a .csv file containing the infinity and Zhe
characters (I have
> > > > attached the file for convenience, hopefully it is no
rejected by
> your
> > > > email service). Launch an interactive session using
> > > >
> > > >> r --vanilla
> > > >
> > > > Enter the following statement taking care to replace the
> > > > <path-to-file> with the appropriate one:
> > > >
> > > >>
read.table("<path-to-file>/unicode_chars.csv",
sep=",",
> > encoding="UTF-8")
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > This should result in a two element data.frame; the first
being the
> > > > incorrect value of 8 with an additional <U+FEFF> and
the second the
> > > > correct value of Zhe.
> > > >
> > > > Note the additional <U+FEFF> prefixed to the front of
the '8'. This
> > > > appears to be a hidden character for the purposes of letting
editors
> > > > know the encoding. The following link has some explanation
however,
> it
> > > > states this is caused by excel. The file I created was done
so using
> > > > notepad and not Excel.
> > > >
> > > >
> >
>
https://medium.freecodecamp.org/a-quick-tale-about-feff-the-invisible-character-cd25cd4630e7
> > > >
> > > > System Details:
> > > > OS:
> > > >> Windows 10.0.17134 Build 17134
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > R Version:
> > > >> platform       x86_64-w64-mingw32
> > > >> arch           x86_64
> > > >> os             mingw32
> > > >> system         x86_64, mingw32
> > > >> status
> > > >> major          3
> > > >> minor          4.1
> > > >> year           2017
> > > >> month          06
> > > >> day            30
> > > >> svn rev        72865
> > > >> language       R
> > > >> version.string R version 3.4.1 (2017-06-30)
> > > >> nickname       Single Candle
> > > > ______________________________________________
> > > > R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> > > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> > >
> > > --
> > > Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
> > > Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
> > > Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
> > > Phone: (+45)38153501
> > > Office: A 4.23
> > > Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> >
>
>         [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>
	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

I can reproduce this behavior on my Windows 10 system in RGui (cp1252): 
when I paste the Unicode infinity symbol into the console, it is treated 
as number 8. This is caused by Windows "best fit" default behavior in 
conversion of unicode characters to characters in the current native 
encoding: at some point in the past, 8 has been chosen as a good fit for 
infinity in Windows. In my scenario, the conversion is invoked by RGui 
before returning the input to the main R loop, even before the input 
gets to the parser. In principle, we could change this particular 
conversion in RGui to avoid the substitution. RGui uses "\uxxxx"
escapes
to pass characters that cannot be represented, this is why e.g. the 
Cyrillic Zhe \u0436 worked, so we could tell Windows not to do the 
substitution and pass "\u221e" for Infinity, and then the string after
being processed by the parser will be represented in UTF-8 inside R and 
could be e.g. printed by the RGui console. That is something that could 
be considered, but it will not solve the main problem and it may 
actually cause trouble to users who are used to such substitutions 
(especially when the substitutions are more intuitive, but, that may be 
a matter of opinion).

The main problem is that in normal use, sooner or later R will get to 
the point when it will need to do the conversion to native encoding, and 
in some context where "\uxxxx" escapes will not be possible. One
cannot
reliably work with strings in R that cannot be represented in the 
current native encoding (except when one knows precisely how to avoid 
the conversion in some specific task, but that may be brittle; so the 
best-fit substitution might in principle help here). This problem does 
not exist on Unix/macOS systems where the current native encoding is 
UTF-8 these days, so today it only exists on Windows where UTF-8 cannot 
be the current native encoding. As has been discussed before, even 
though we could rewrite in principle all calls to Windows API to use 
Unicode and have all strings in UTF-8 in R, we would still have problems 
when interfacing with packages that assume strings are in current native 
encoding (without checking), so this problem won't be easy to fix.

Best,
Tomas

On 2/7/19 3:10 PM, Daniel Possenriede wrote:
> There seems to be something odd with "?" on Windows (and not only
with
> read.table)
> In native encoding (cp-1252 in my case), "?" gets converted to
"8"
>
> x <-  "?"
> Encoding(x)
> #> [1] "unknown"
> print(x)
> #> [1] "8"
> charToRaw(x)
> #> [1] 38
>
> "?" is indeed "8"
>
> identical(x, "8")
> #> [1] TRUE
>
> Everything seems fine if  "?" is UTF-8 encoded.
>
> y <- "\u221E"
> Encoding(y)
> #> [1] "UTF-8"
> print(y)
> #> [1]  "?"
> charToRaw(y)
> #> [1] e2 88 9e
>
> Unless the string is converted back to native encoding.
>
> format(y)
> #> [1] "8"
>
> This ought to be "<U+221E>", equivalently to
>
> format("?")
> #> [1] "<U+221D>"
>
> Session Info:
>
> si <- sessionInfo()
> si$running
> #> [1] "Windows 10 x64 (build 17134)"
> si$R.version$version.string
> #> [1] "R version 3.5.2 (2018-12-20)"
> si$locale
> #> [1]
>
"LC_COLLATE=German_Germany.1252;LC_CTYPE=German_Germany.1252;LC_MONETARY=German_Germany.1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=German_Germany.1252"
>
>
>
> Am Do., 7. Feb. 2019 um 14:33 Uhr schrieb David Byrne <
> david.byrne222 at gmail.com>:
>
>> I can confirm that it doesn't happen on Ubuntu 18.04.1 so Peter is
>> most likely correct; it looks like its Windows specific.
>>
>> On Thu, 7 Feb 2019 at 12:55, peter dalgaard <pdalgd at gmail.com>
wrote:
>>> This doesn't seem to be happening on MacOS, neither in Terminal
nor
>> RStudio, (R 3.5.1, R-devel, R-patched). So probably Windows specific.
>>> -pd
>>>
>>>> On 7 Feb 2019, at 11:17 , David Byrne <david.byrne222 at
gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>> Bug
>>>> Using read.table(file, encoding="UTF-8") to import a
UTF-8 encoded
>>>> file containing the infinity symbol (' ? ') results in
the infinity
>>>> symbol imported as the number 8. Other Unicode characters seem
>>>> unaffected, example, Zhe: ?
>>>>
>>>> Expected Behavior:
>>>> The imported data.frame should represent the infinity symbol as
the
>>>> expected 'Inf' so that normal mathematical operations
can be processed
>>>>
>>>> Stack Overflow Post:
>>>> I created a question on Stack Overflow where one other member
was able
>>>> to reproduce the same issues I was having. This question can be
found
>>>> at:
>>>>
>>
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/54522196/r-read-table-with-utf-8-encoded-file-reads-infinity-symbol-as-8-int
>>>> Method to Reproduce - 1:
>>>> A simple method to reproduce this issues is to use R-Studio: In
the
>>>> console, type the following:
>>>>> read.table(text=" ?", encoding="UTF-8")
>>>> The result should be a data.frame with a single value of
'8'
>>>>
>>>> Repeating the same with ? Results in correct expected behavior
>>>>
>>>> Method to Reproduce - 2:
>>>> Create a .csv file containing the infinity and Zhe characters
(I have
>>>> attached the file for convenience, hopefully it is no rejected
by your
>>>> email service). Launch an interactive session using
>>>>
>>>>> r --vanilla
>>>> Enter the following statement taking care to replace the
>>>> <path-to-file> with the appropriate one:
>>>>
>>>>>
read.table("<path-to-file>/unicode_chars.csv",
sep=",",
>> encoding="UTF-8")
>>>>
>>>> This should result in a two element data.frame; the first being
the
>>>> incorrect value of 8 with an additional <U+FEFF> and the
second the
>>>> correct value of Zhe.
>>>>
>>>> Note the additional <U+FEFF> prefixed to the front of the
'8'. This
>>>> appears to be a hidden character for the purposes of letting
editors
>>>> know the encoding. The following link has some explanation
however, it
>>>> states this is caused by excel. The file I created was done so
using
>>>> notepad and not Excel.
>>>>
>>>>
>>
https://medium.freecodecamp.org/a-quick-tale-about-feff-the-invisible-character-cd25cd4630e7
>>>> System Details:
>>>> OS:
>>>>> Windows 10.0.17134 Build 17134
>>>>
>>>> R Version:
>>>>> platform       x86_64-w64-mingw32
>>>>> arch           x86_64
>>>>> os             mingw32
>>>>> system         x86_64, mingw32
>>>>> status
>>>>> major          3
>>>>> minor          4.1
>>>>> year           2017
>>>>> month          06
>>>>> day            30
>>>>> svn rev        72865
>>>>> language       R
>>>>> version.string R version 3.4.1 (2017-06-30)
>>>>> nickname       Single Candle
>>>> ______________________________________________
>>>> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
>>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>>> --
>>> Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
>>> Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
>>> Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
>>> Phone: (+45)38153501
>>> Office: A 4.23
>>> Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>>
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel