R help - Nov 2008 - New to List - just starting to learn R - question about reading in data

Hi, everyone,

I'm new to R and the List, and excited to be here.  I am coming from a 
background working in SPSS 16, primarily, which has a lot of easy 
options for reading in data.  I am working in R in an Ubuntu Linux 
environment, and I'm learning with R Commander.

Now, here's my question. In my line of work, I'm used to getting data in
some kind of flat ASCII format with a separate file indicating which 
columns correspond to which variables.  In the Venables and Ripley book 
on S/R that I'm reading, there doesn't seem to be a way to read this 
kind of data format into R, and I haven't found anything online.

If anyone has the tine, I'd sure appreciate a little guidance. 

Thanks,

DD

Welcome!

Dirty D wrote:
> Hi, everyone,
> 
> I'm new to R and the List, and excited to be here.  I am coming from a 
> background working in SPSS 16, primarily, which has a lot of easy 
> options for reading in data.  I am working in R in an Ubuntu Linux 
> environment, and I'm learning with R Commander.
I work with R in Ubuntu also, it is a good decision I think.  I use ESS 
(a package for Emacs), however.

> 
> Now, here's my question. In my line of work, I'm used to getting
data in
> some kind of flat ASCII format with a separate file indicating which 
> columns correspond to which variables.  In the Venables and Ripley book 
> on S/R that I'm reading, there doesn't seem to be a way to read
this
> kind of data format into R, and I haven't found anything online.
Certainly, look up read.table (?read.table in R) and in V&R, bottom of 
page 21 specifically.  There is also an R Data Import/Export manual on 
the project's site.  But, read.table is almost surely what you're 
looking for.

test <- read.table("/path/to/file", header = TRUE)

This is a common example if your text file has a first row of variable 
names. See pages 21-22 for more examples.

HTH!

> 
> If anyone has the tine, I'd sure appreciate a little guidance.
> Thanks,
> 
> DD
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide 
> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

I've not had occasion to use it yet, but perhaps read.fwf.  At the R command
prompt, type ?read.fwf to learn about it.

--Chris Ryan

---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2008 23:23:18 -0500
>From: Dirty D <dirtyd at overdetermined.net>  
>Subject: [R] New to List - just starting to learn R - question about reading
in data
>To: r-help at r-project.org
>
>Hi, everyone,
>
>I'm new to R and the List, and excited to be here.  I am coming from a 
>background working in SPSS 16, primarily, which has a lot of easy 
>options for reading in data.  I am working in R in an Ubuntu Linux 
>environment, and I'm learning with R Commander.
>
>Now, here's my question. In my line of work, I'm used to getting
data in
>some kind of flat ASCII format with a separate file indicating which 
>columns correspond to which variables.  In the Venables and Ripley book 
>on S/R that I'm reading, there doesn't seem to be a way to read this
>kind of data format into R, and I haven't found anything online.
>
>If anyone has the tine, I'd sure appreciate a little guidance. 
>
>Thanks,
>
>DD
>
>______________________________________________
>R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

Are you looking for read.fwf?

I've not seen that form of data file since the days of punched cards.
(That _was_ the era when SPSS was written._)

(Real names and real signature blocks are preferred here.)

On Fri, 7 Nov 2008, someone wrote:
> Hi, everyone,
>
> I'm new to R and the List, and excited to be here.  I am coming from a 
> background working in SPSS 16, primarily, which has a lot of easy options
for
> reading in data.  I am working in R in an Ubuntu Linux environment, and
I'm
> learning with R Commander.
>
> Now, here's my question. In my line of work, I'm used to getting
data in some
> kind of flat ASCII format with a separate file indicating which columns 
> correspond to which variables.  In the Venables and Ripley book on S/R that
> I'm reading, there doesn't seem to be a way to read this kind of
data format
> into R, and I haven't found anything online.
>
> If anyone has the tine, I'd sure appreciate a little guidance. 
> Thanks,
>
> DD
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
-- 
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