R help - Apr 2014 - Read.table mucks up headers

Hey All

I am trying to read in a small text file using read.table. 

dput(sim)
structure(list(ï...X. = 1:7, Y1 = c(2.5501, 4.105, 5.4687, 7.0009, 
8.5066, 9.785, 11.5167), Y2 = c(2.5501, 4.105, 5.4687, 11.0009, 
8.5066, 9.785, 11.5167), Y3 = c(2.5501, 4.105, 5.4687, 7.0009, 
8.5066, 9.785, 15.5167)), .Names = c("ï...X.", "Y1",
"Y2", "Y3"
), class = "data.frame", row.names = c(NA, -7L))

But for some reason my first header comes as "?...X. ", instead of
just
"X". Can some one please tell me why? And how to fix it?

This is what I did in my code, using R-studio
> sim<-read.table("C:/00Pavneet/# MSc/# temp/sim data
1.txt",header=T)
> View(sim)

***********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
MORE TH>N is a trading style of Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance plc (No.
93792). Registered in England and Wales at St. Mark’s Court, Chart Way, Horsham,
West Sussex, RH12 1XL.

Authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial
Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority.
************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

You have not posted the input to your code so it is not reproducible. Also, you
have posted in HTML, which is notorious for corrupting R code and data in
emails.

If I were to guess, though, it looks to me like you are working with a UTF-8
file with a Byte Order Mark (header). I don't know the "correct"
way to address this, but if you only have plain text data then the rest of your
table should be valid and you could reset the name of the first column yourself
like

names(sim)[1] <- "X"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Newmiller                        The     .....       .....  Go Live...
DCN:<jdnewmil at dcn.davis.ca.us>        Basics: ##.#.       ##.#.  Live
Go...
                                      Live:   OO#.. Dead: OO#..  Playing
Research Engineer (Solar/Batteries            O.O#.       #.O#.  with
/Software/Embedded Controllers)               .OO#.       .OO#.  rocks...1k
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.

On April 14, 2014 7:52:11 AM PDT, Pavneet Arora <pavneet.arora at
uk.rsagroup.com> wrote:
>Hey All
>
>I am trying to read in a small text file using read.table. 
>
>dput(sim)
>structure(list(??...X. = 1:7, Y1 = c(2.5501, 4.105, 5.4687, 7.0009, 
>8.5066, 9.785, 11.5167), Y2 = c(2.5501, 4.105, 5.4687, 11.0009, 
>8.5066, 9.785, 11.5167), Y3 = c(2.5501, 4.105, 5.4687, 7.0009, 
>8.5066, 9.785, 15.5167)), .Names = c("??...X.", "Y1",
"Y2", "Y3"
>), class = "data.frame", row.names = c(NA, -7L))
>
>But for some reason my first header comes as "?...X. ", instead of
just
>
>"X". Can some one please tell me why? And how to fix it?
>
>This is what I did in my code, using R-studio
>> sim<-read.table("C:/00Pavneet/# MSc/# temp/sim data
1.txt",header=T)
>> View(sim)
>
>
>***********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
>MORE TH>N is a trading style of Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance plc
(No.
>93792). Registered in England and Wales at St. Mark???s Court, Chart
>Way, Horsham, West Sussex, RH12 1XL. 
>
>Authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the
>Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority.
>************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
>
>	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>______________________________________________
>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.

> But for some reason my first header comes as "?...X. ", instead
of just "X".
> Can some one please tell me why? And how to fix it?
i) What were the separator characters in the original data file header row? 
ii) Your first character is not being decoded properly; check the file encoding
and set accordingly?
iii) See if the offending first character(s) can sensibly be stripped before
reading the file?

S Ellison



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