R help - Feb 2012 - read separate columns from an Excel sheet

Hello,

Lets suppose I have an Excel sheet with 9 columns of data. How to tell R to
read for example column 1 and 7 of this sheet? I know only the usual code
without specifying columns:

library(gdata)
a <- read.xls("file.xls", sheet=1)                # reads in the
1st sheet

Thank you.

--
View this message in context:
http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/read-separate-columns-from-an-Excel-sheet-tp4422812p4422812.html
Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

On Sun, Feb 26, 2012 at 2:58 PM, Ivette <iva_mihaylova at mail.ru>
wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Lets suppose I have an Excel sheet with 9 columns of data. How to tell R to
> read for example column 1 and 7 of this sheet? I know only the usual code
> without specifying columns:
>
> library(gdata)
> a <- read.xls("file.xls", sheet=1) ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?# reads in
the 1st sheet
>
Its pretty much the same as if you were using read.table, viz.

read.xls("file.xls")[c(1, 7])

or if you know that there are nc columns:

nc <- ...
read.xls("file.xls", colClasses = replace(rep("NULL", nc),
c(1, 7), NA))

-- 
Statistics & Software Consulting
GKX Group, GKX Associates Inc.
tel: 1-877-GKX-GROUP
email: ggrothendieck at gmail.com