R help - Jul 2010 - Files with Missing Data

I'm a new R user so this is possibly a naive question.  I'm trying to 
load an external CSV file into a dataframe using:

   df_name<-read.table("myfile.csv")

myfile.csv should have 5 elements per row, though a percentage are 
missing the last two elements (the commas are present as placemarkers).  
However, R does not create the dataset but returns the message:

     line 1 did not have 2 elements

but examining the file shows that it does.  These are the first 5 rows:

DARWIN,NT,800,-12.461334,130.841904
ALAWA,NT,810,-12.37896,130.874226
BRINKIN,NT,810,-12.364533,130.869394
CASUARINA,NT,810,-12.373112,130.883619
COCONUT GROVE,NT,810,-12.397685,130.852324

Is R complaining because the first two elements of each row are not 
numeric, or am I doing something else wrong?
Thanks for your suggestions

regards

Norman Jessup

Tena koe Norman

The default separator for read.table is '' so you need to specify it as
a comma:

dfName <- read.table("myfile.csv", sep=',')

or use read.csv().

HTH ....

Peter Alspach
> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-
> project.org] On Behalf Of Norman Jessup
> Sent: Friday, 2 July 2010 1:18 p.m.
> To: r-help at r-project.org
> Subject: [R] Files with Missing Data
> 
> I'm a new R user so this is possibly a naive question.  I'm trying
to
> load an external CSV file into a dataframe using:
> 
>    df_name<-read.table("myfile.csv")
> 
> myfile.csv should have 5 elements per row, though a percentage are
> missing the last two elements (the commas are present as placemarkers).
> However, R does not create the dataset but returns the message:
> 
>      line 1 did not have 2 elements
> 
> but examining the file shows that it does.  These are the first 5 rows:
> 
> DARWIN,NT,800,-12.461334,130.841904
> ALAWA,NT,810,-12.37896,130.874226
> BRINKIN,NT,810,-12.364533,130.869394
> CASUARINA,NT,810,-12.373112,130.883619
> COCONUT GROVE,NT,810,-12.397685,130.852324
> 
> Is R complaining because the first two elements of each row are not
> numeric, or am I doing something else wrong?
> Thanks for your suggestions
> 
> regards
> 
> Norman Jessup
> 
> ______________________________________________
> 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.

Norman Jessup wrote:
> I'm a new R user so this is possibly a naive question.  I'm trying
to
> load an external CSV file into a dataframe using:
> 
>   df_name<-read.table("myfile.csv")
> 
> myfile.csv should have 5 elements per row, though a percentage are 
> missing the last two elements (the commas are present as placemarkers).  
> However, R does not create the dataset but returns the message:
> 
>     line 1 did not have 2 elements
> 
> but examining the file shows that it does.  These are the first 5 rows:
> 
> DARWIN,NT,800,-12.461334,130.841904
> ALAWA,NT,810,-12.37896,130.874226
> BRINKIN,NT,810,-12.364533,130.869394
> CASUARINA,NT,810,-12.373112,130.883619
> COCONUT GROVE,NT,810,-12.397685,130.852324
> 
> Is R complaining because the first two elements of each row are not 
> numeric, or am I doing something else wrong?
> Thanks for your suggestions
You can use Peter's advice; also note there is a read.csv function.  A
thorough
reading of the ?read.table help page is very useful I've found.

There is also an R data import/export manual on CRAN.