read.table {utils}
R Documentation
Data Input
Description
Reads a file in table format and creates a data frame from it,
with cases corresponding to lines and variables to fields in the
file.
Usage
read.table(file, header = FALSE, sep = "", quote = "\"'",
dec = ".", row.names, col.names,
as.is = !stringsAsFactors,
na.strings = "NA", colClasses = NA, nrows = -1,
skip = 0, check.names = TRUE, fill = !blank.lines.skip,
strip.white = FALSE, blank.lines.skip = TRUE,
comment.char = "#",
allowEscapes = FALSE, flush = FALSE,
stringsAsFactors = default.stringsAsFactors(),
fileEncoding = "", encoding = "unknown")
read.csv(file, header = TRUE, sep = ",", quote="\"", dec=".",
fill = TRUE, comment.char="", ...)
read.csv2(file, header = TRUE, sep = ";", quote="\"", dec=",",
fill = TRUE, comment.char="", ...)
read.delim(file, header = TRUE, sep = "\t", quote="\"", dec=".",
fill = TRUE, comment.char="", ...)
read.delim2(file, header = TRUE, sep = "\t", quote="\"", dec=",",
fill = TRUE, comment.char="", ...)
Arguments
file
the name of the file which the data are to be read from. Each
row of the table appears as one line of the file. If it does not
contain an absolute path, the file name is
relative to the current working directory, R 2.10.0 this
can be a compressed file (see
Alternatively, file can be a readable text-mode
Ctrl-D on
Unix and Ctrl-Z on Windows. Any pushback on
stdin() will be cleared before return.)
file can also be a complete URL.
header
a logical value indicating whether the file contains the names
of the variables as its first line. If missing, the value is
determined from the file format: header is set to
TRUE if and only if the first row contains one fewer
field than the number of columns.
sep
the field separator character. Values on each line of the file
are separated by this character. If sep = "" (the
default for read.table) the separator is ‘white
space’, that is one or more spaces, tabs, newlines or carriage
returns.
quote
the set of quoting characters. To disable quoting altogether,
use quote = "". See colClasses is specified.
dec
the character used in the file for decimal points.
row.names
a vector of row names. This can be a vector giving the actual
row names, or a single number giving the column of the table which
contains the row names, or character string giving the name of the
table column containing the row names.
If there is a header and the first row contains one fewer field
than the number of columns, the first column in the input is used
for the row names. Otherwise if row.names is missing,
the rows are numbered.
Using row.names = NULL forces row numbering.
Missing or NULL row.names generate row
names that are considered to be ‘automatic’ (and not preserved by
col.names
a vector of optional names for the variables. The default is to
use "V" followed by the column number.
as.is
the default behavior of read.table is to convert
character variables (which are not converted to logical, numeric or
complex) to factors. The variable as.is controls the
conversion of columns not otherwise specified by
colClasses. Its value is either a vector of logicals
(values are recycled if necessary), or a vector of numeric or
character indices which specify which columns should not be
converted to factors.
Note: to suppress all conversions including those of numeric
columns, set colClasses = "character".
Note that as.is is specified per column (not per
variable) and so includes the column of row names (if any) and any
columns to be skipped.
na.strings
a character vector of strings which are to be interpreted as
colClasses
character. A vector of classes to be assumed for the columns.
Recycled as necessary, or if the character vector is named,
unspecified values ar