Jim, thanks for the suggestion. There is still something subtle & non-intuitive going on here. I adapted your code with minor changes as follows (I had to add the sep argument) but get different behavior:
c.names <- scan("file.csv", what='', nlines=1, sep=",") # read column names c.options <- read.table("file.csv", as.is=TRUE, nrows=2, sep=",") # get lines 2-3 c.data <- read.table("file.csv", sep=",") # rest of the data colnames("file.csv") <- c.names Your code works perfectly (you knew that!). My adaptation runs, but c.options contains the first two lines, not lines 2 & 3, and c.data contains the contents of the entire file as *factors* (data type of c.names & c.options is correct - character). How strange! Also, and this is an observation rather than a question: in your code, you call scan and get the first line as characters, then you do read.table which gets lines 2 & 3 presumably because the first line, from read.table's perspective is a hidden label (?), then the second time you use read.table the hidden first line is ignored, as are the two lines with character data. I really don't understand these behaviors, which is probably why I'm having trouble parsing the file! Thanks, Bryan On 10/30/07 8:40 PM, "jim holtman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Here is one way. You will probably use 'file' instead of textConnection > >> x.in <- textConnection('wavelength SampleA SampleB SampleC SampleD > + color "green" "black" "black" "green" > + class "Class 1" "Class 2" "Class 2" "Class 1" > + 403 1.94E-01 2.14E-01 2.11E-01 1.83E-01 > + 409 1.92E-01 1.89E-01 2.00E-01 1.82E-01 > + 415 1.70E-01 1.99E-01 1.94E-01 1.86E-01 > + 420 1.59E-01 1.91E-01 2.16E-01 1.74E-01 > + 426 1.50E-01 1.66E-01 1.72E-01 1.58E-01 > + 432 1.42E-01 1.50E-01 1.62E-01 1.48E-01') >> >> c.names <- scan(x.in, what='', nlines=1) # read column names > Read 5 items >> c.options <- read.table(x.in, as.is=TRUE, nrows=2) # get lines 2-3 >> c.data <- read.table(x.in) # rest of the data >> colnames(c.data) <- c.names >> close(x.in) >> c.options # here are lines 2-3 > V1 V2 V3 V4 V5 > 1 color green black black green > 2 class Class 1 Class 2 Class 2 Class 1 >> c.data # your data > wavelength SampleA SampleB SampleC SampleD > 1 403 0.194 0.214 0.211 0.183 > 2 409 0.192 0.189 0.200 0.182 > 3 415 0.170 0.199 0.194 0.186 > 4 420 0.159 0.191 0.216 0.174 > 5 426 0.150 0.166 0.172 0.158 > 6 432 0.142 0.150 0.162 0.148 > > > On 10/30/07, Bryan Hanson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Hi Folks... Œbeen playing with this for a while, with no luck, so I¹m hoping >> someone knows it off the top of their head... Difficult to find this nuance >> in the archives, as so many msgs deal with read.csv! >> >> I¹m trying to read a data file with the following structure (a little piece >> of the actual data, they are actually csv just didn¹t paste with the >> commas): >> >> wavelength SampleA SampleB SampleC SampleD >> color "green" "black" "black" "green" >> class "Class 1" "Class 2" "Class 2" "Class 1" >> 403 1.94E-01 2.14E-01 2.11E-01 1.83E-01 >> 409 1.92E-01 1.89E-01 2.00E-01 1.82E-01 >> 415 1.70E-01 1.99E-01 1.94E-01 1.86E-01 >> 420 1.59E-01 1.91E-01 2.16E-01 1.74E-01 >> 426 1.50E-01 1.66E-01 1.72E-01 1.58E-01 >> 432 1.42E-01 1.50E-01 1.62E-01 1.48E-01 >> >> Columns after the first one are sample names. 2nd row is the list of colors >> to use in later plotting. 3rd row is the class for later manova. The rest >> of it is x data in the first column with y1, y2...following for plotting. >> >> I can read the file w/o the color or class rows with read.csv just fine, >> makes a nice data frame with proper data types. The problem comes when >> parsing the 2nd and 3rd rows. Here¹s the code: >> >> data = read.csv("filename", header=TRUE) # read in data >> color = data[1,]; color = data[-1] # capture color info & throw out 1st >> value >> class = data[2,]; class = class[-1] # capture category info & throw out 1st >> value >> >> cleaned.data = data[-1,] # remove color & category info for matrix >> operations >> cleaned.data = data[-1,] >> freq = data[,1] # capture frequency info >> >> What happens is that freq is parsed as factors, and the color and class are >> parsed as a data frames of factors. >> I need color and class to be characters which I can pass to functions in the >> typical way one uses colors and levels. >> I need the freq & the cleaned.data info as numeric for plotting. >> >> I don¹t feel I¹m far off from things working, but that¹s where you all come >> in! Seems like an argument of as.something is needed, but the ones I¹ve >> tried don¹t work. Would it help to put color and class above the x,y data >> in the file, then clean it off? >> >> Btw, I¹m on a Mac using R 2.6.0. >> >> Thanks in advance, Bryan >> ************* >> Bryan Hanson >> Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry >> >> >> >> >> [[alternative HTML version deleted]] >> >> >> ______________________________________________ >> R-help@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. >> >> > ______________________________________________ R-help@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.