On Tue, 22 Jan 2008, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
> On Wed, 23 Jan 2008, David Scott wrote:
>
>>
>> I have encountered a problem with reading a .csv file on a linux box. I
>> can read the file on my windows machine (under XP) but on the linux box it
>> gives :
>>
>>> patients <- read.csv("../Patients.csv", header = FALSE,
>> + col.names = patientsNames)
>> Error in type.convert(data[[i]], as.is = as.is[i], dec = dec,
>> na.strings = character(0)) :
>> invalid multibyte string
>> Calls: read.csv -> read.table -> type.convert
>> Execution halted
>>
>> I am running R 2.6.1 on both machines. I tried on another linux box
>> running 2.5.1 and got the same problem
>>
>> I am guessing it is something to do with the character encoding. On the
>> linux box I have
>>
>> LANG=en_US.UTF-8
>
> So what encoding is the .csv file in? Consider the example at the end of
> ?file
>
> ## examples of use of encodings
> cat(x, file = file("foo", "w", encoding="UTF-8"))
> # read a 'Windows Unicode' file including names
> A <- read.table(file("students", encoding="UCS-2LE"))
>
> and adapt accordingly (encoding = "CP1252" is the most likely value if this
> works in English-language Windows).
>
Thanks Brian for the super-quick, super-helpful reply. The encoding you
suggested worked.
I found a workaround myself too---I guessed that some plus/minus signs
might be the problem and replaced them and could read in the file.
That is just a kludge so I am using the encoding specification.
I am a total dunce when it comes to encodings though. How do you find the
encoding of a file?
David
_________________________________________________________________
David Scott Department of Statistics, Tamaki Campus
The University of Auckland, PB 92019
Auckland 1142, NEW ZEALAND
Phone: +64 9 373 7599 ext 86830 Fax: +64 9 373 7000
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Graduate Officer, Department of Statistics
Director of Consulting, Department of Statistics
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