R help - Jan 2010 - Dynamic file / url name with read.csv

Hi- 

I would like to be able to change the value of SymA below and download a file
from the corresponding URL.? Hardcoded, this line works fine:

Symbol<-
read.csv("http://ichart.finance.yahoo.com/table.csv?s=SPY&ignore=.csv",
stringsAsFactors=F)

However, when I incorporate using?a variable for the ticker, it no longer
works.?

SymA<- "SPY"
Sym1<-
cat('http://ichart.finance.yahoo.com/table.csv?s=",SymA,"&ignore=.csv",sep="";)
Symbol<- read.csv(Sym1, stringsAsFactors=F)

I know that the problem lies in the concatenation, but I've tried different
variations of cat() and toString() (and others) with SymA and Sym1 but cannot
seem to get a string together that will work.? Would appreciate any suggestions
for this simple problem??

Thank you.

A few suggestions:
  Don't mix ' and "
  Use paste()
  Don't include an extraneous ;

SymA<- "SPY"
Sym1<-
paste("http://ichart.finance.yahoo.com/table.csv?s=",SymA,"&ignore=.csv",sep="")
Symbol<- read.csv(Sym1, stringsAsFactors=F)


On Jan 12, 2010, at 10:03 PM, B S wrote:
> 
> Hi- 
> 
> I would like to be able to change the value of SymA below and download a
file from the corresponding URL.  Hardcoded, this line works fine:
> 
> Symbol<-
read.csv("http://ichart.finance.yahoo.com/table.csv?s=SPY&ignore=.csv",
stringsAsFactors=F)
> 
> However, when I incorporate using a variable for the ticker, it no longer
works.
> 
> SymA<- "SPY"
> Sym1<-
cat('http://ichart.finance.yahoo.com/table.csv?s=",SymA,"&ignore=.csv",sep="";)
> Symbol<- read.csv(Sym1, stringsAsFactors=F)
> 
> I know that the problem lies in the concatenation, but I've tried
different variations of cat() and toString() (and others) with SymA and Sym1 but
cannot seem to get a string together that will work.  Would appreciate any
suggestions for this simple problem??
> 
> Thank you. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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