On Dec 21, 2010, at 4:11 PM, Bert Gunter wrote:
Try reading the csv file with, say, Notepad. I think you may find that
the problem is that Excel assumes the column is numeric and strips off
the zeros before saving the file. So you need to tell it that the ID
columns are character before saving.
If Excel turns out to be the culprit, there is an equivalent operation
to the colClasses specification which you can do to prevent leading
zeros from being dropped. Select the entire column by clicking on the
column letter at the top margin of the sheet and then choose Format/
Cells/... and pick "Text". The same sort of preparation can also save
you grief with Date types in Excel or OO.org.
Then you need to read the Help page for read.csv more carefully,
noting, in particular, the "colClasses" argument.
-- Bert
On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 12:43 PM, James Splinter
<james.r.splin...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello,
I have a data set, with some numerical values, some non-numerical
data, my
issue is that I need to preserve my ID numbers (numerics) with the
leading
zeros, but when I import the data into R (it's in .csv format)
using the
read.csv(" ") command, it turns all the ID numbers (Example: 00210)
into
numbers, removing the leading zeros, so I end up with 210. I tried
using the
"as.is=" command on the column that I wanted to treat as text, but
it had no
effect.
Any help would be very much appreciated,
Thanks,
James
--
Bert Gunter
Genentech Nonclinical Biostatistics
467-7374
http://devo.gene.com/groups/devo/depts/ncb/home.shtml
David Winsemius, MD
West Hartford, CT
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