R help - Feb 2003 - Read.table problem

Hi !

I am new to R, and using the MAC version onto Mac OS 9.1. My question concerns 
the problem I encounter when I try to read some data I have using the 
read.table function. I always get an error of type : Error in scan(file = 
file, what = what, sep = sep, quote = quote, dec = dec,  :
	line 1 did not have 9 elements

Here is my code:

varnames <- c("names", "symbol", "price",
"displ", "gas", "weight", "reliab",
"origin", "type")

cardat <- read.table("PowerMac 7300:Logiciels de 
Statistiques:rm162:car02.txt", col.names=varnames, 
as.is=c(F,T,F,F,F,F,F,F,F,F))

Can you advice me ?

Thanks in advance,

Pascale Tremblay

Perhaps your data entrys delimited with comma, semicolon so you have
to use sep="," or sep=";" .

For tab-delimited data i take read.delim.

hope this helps.christian




----- Original Message -----
From: "ptremb17" <ptremb17 at po-box.mcgill.ca>
To: "R-HELP" <r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch>
Sent: Saturday, February 01, 2003 3:24 AM
Subject: [R] Read.table problem

> Hi !
>
> I am new to R, and using the MAC version onto Mac OS 9.1. My question
concerns
> the problem I encounter when I try to read some data I have using the
> read.table function. I always get an error of type : Error in scan(file
> file, what = what, sep = sep, quote = quote, dec = dec,  :
> line 1 did not have 9 elements
>
> Here is my code:
>
> varnames <- c("names", "symbol", "price",
"displ", "gas", "weight",
"reliab",
> "origin", "type")
>
> cardat <- read.table("PowerMac 7300:Logiciels de
> Statistiques:rm162:car02.txt", col.names=varnames,
> as.is=c(F,T,F,F,F,F,F,F,F,F))
>
> Can you advice me ?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Pascale Tremblay
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> http://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help

Dear Pascale,

It seems an obvious question, so perhaps not worth asking, but did you 
check that line 1 of the data file actually has 9 elements (separated by 
white space)? (I notice that your as.is argument specifies 10 elements; I 
don't believe that this should cause a problem if there are really 9.) If 
inspection of the file doesn't reveal the problem, you could try to run 
count.fields() on the file to see how many elements R thinks are in each line.

John

At 09:24 PM 1/31/2003 -0500, ptremb17 wrote:
>Hi !
>
>I am new to R, and using the MAC version onto Mac OS 9.1. My question 
>concerns
>the problem I encounter when I try to read some data I have using the
>read.table function. I always get an error of type : Error in scan(file
>file, what = what, sep = sep, quote = quote, dec = dec,  :
>         line 1 did not have 9 elements
>
>Here is my code:
>
>varnames <- c("names", "symbol", "price",
"displ", "gas", "weight", "reliab",
>"origin", "type")
>
>cardat <- read.table("PowerMac 7300:Logiciels de
>Statistiques:rm162:car02.txt", col.names=varnames,
>as.is=c(F,T,F,F,F,F,F,F,F,F))
-----------------------------------------------------
John Fox
Department of Sociology
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4M4
email: jfox at mcmaster.ca
phone: 905-525-9140x23604
web: www.socsci.mcmaster.ca/jfox
-----------------------------------------------------

----- Original Message -----
From: "ptremb17" <ptremb17 at po-box.mcgill.ca>
length(varnames) = 9
length(c(F,T,F,F,F,F,F,F,F,F))) = 10

To: "R-HELP" <r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch>
Sent: Saturday, February 01, 2003 3:24 AM
Subject: [R] Read.table problem

> Hi !
>
> I am new to R, and using the MAC version onto Mac OS 9.1. My question
concerns
> the problem I encounter when I try to read some data I have using the
> read.table function. I always get an error of type : Error in scan(file
> file, what = what, sep = sep, quote = quote, dec = dec,  :
> line 1 did not have 9 elements
>
> Here is my code:
>
> varnames <- c("names", "symbol", "price",
"displ", "gas", "weight",
"reliab",
> "origin", "type")
>
> cardat <- read.table("PowerMac 7300:Logiciels de
> Statistiques:rm162:car02.txt", col.names=varnames,
> as.is=c(F,T,F,F,F,F,F,F,F,F))
>
> Can you advice me ?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Pascale Tremblay
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> http://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help