Duncan, Yes, I admit I haven't updated since 2.15.2 so I was behind. I am seeing the same problem with reading from RODBC (sql server) tables. I write data to a table and then read it back. In R 2.15 it would come in numeric. Under R 3.1 it comes in as a string.
Thanks, Roger -----Original Message----- From: Duncan Murdoch [mailto:murdoch.dun...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2014 4:40 PM To: Bos, Roger; r-help@r-project.org Subject: Re: [R] R 3.1 changes to type.convert causing strings where I used to get numeric On 30/04/2014, 4:20 PM, Bos, Roger wrote: > Dear R-help, > > I recently upgraded to R 3.1 patched and code that ran fine previously and > now giving a lot of errors because the data is coming in as strings instead > of numeric. I can fix my code to wrapping each item I want to use with > as.numeric(), but that seems very inefficient. > > I looked at the change list for R 3.1 and I see the first item is a change in > type.convert() that seems to be causing me grief. The suggestion is to use > colClasses, but when I try to do so I get an error regarding the quotes > again... > >> ann1 <- read.table(driveletter %+% "/snap/ann/snap_fyr_ann1_" >> %+% i %+% ".txt", header=TRUE, quote="", as.is=TRUE, >> colClasses='numeric') > Error in scan(file, what, nmax, sep, dec, quote, skip, nlines, na.strings, : > scan() expected 'a real', got '"1033.7"' > > Does anyone have any suggestions? This sounds like two separate problems. The first is the change to type.convert(). That's going to be dealt with (it's already in R-devel, will eventually be handled in R-patched and 3.1.1). You deserve part of the blame for this for never testing the pre-release version. It would have been easier to fix before release, but nobody who tested then bothered to report it. The second problem is one I don't recall hearing reported before. If you have a .csv file containing the lines X "1" then it should be readable as a .csv, because the quotes should be stripped. In fact it is readable now if you *don't* specify that the column is numeric, and it will be converted to a numeric value. However, if you do use colClasses="numeric" you'll get an error. That looks wrong, though it is consistent with ?read.table. > x <- c("X", '"1"') > read.csv(textConnection(x)) X 1 1 > read.csv(textConnection(x), colClasses="numeric") Error in scan(file, what, > nmax, sep, dec, quote, skip, nlines, na.strings, : scan() expected 'a real', got '"1"' > Duncan Murdoch > > > CHANGES IN R 3.1.0: > NEW FEATURES > > > type.convert() (and hence by default read.table()) returns a character vector > or factor when representing a numeric input as a double would lose accuracy. > Similarly for complex inputs. > If a file contains numeric data with unrepresentable numbers of decimal > places that are intended to be read as numeric, specify colClasses in > read.table() to be"numeric". > > > *************************************************************** > This message is for the named person's use only. It may > contain confidential, proprietary or legally privileged > information. No right to confidential or privileged treatment > of this message is waived or lost by an error in transmission. > If you have received this message in error, please immediately > notify the sender by e-mail, delete the message and all > copies from your system and destroy any hard copies. You must > not, directly or indirectly, use, disclose, distribute, > print or copy any part of this message if you are not > the intended recipient. > ______________________________________________ > 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. > *************************************************************** This message is for the named person's use only. It may contain confidential, proprietary or legally privileged information. No right to confidential or privileged treatment of this message is waived or lost by an error in transmission. If you have received this message in error, please immediately notify the sender by e-mail, delete the message and all copies from your system and destroy any hard copies. You must not, directly or indirectly, use, disclose, distribute, print or copy any part of this message if you are not the intended recipient. ______________________________________________ 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.
