Duncan, Thank you very much. I did not have a chance to examine this approach today. I will because I need to have this functionality.
I appreciate you time and insights Steve Steve Friedman Ph. D. Spatial Statistical Analyst Everglades and Dry Tortugas National Park 950 N Krome Ave (3rd Floor) Homestead, Florida 33034 steve_fried...@nps.gov Office (305) 224 - 4282 Fax (305) 224 - 4147 Duncan Mackay <mac...@northnet. com.au> To steve_fried...@nps.gov 04/17/2009 09:05 cc AM ZE10 r-help@r-project.org Subject Re: [R] Reading in a large number of dbf files Steve If the .dbf extension files are dBase type. generalizing: there are 2 series of dbase .dbf files for non SQL type dbf files: 1 dBase III when Borland had dBase and 2 dBase 2000 produced by dBase inc If they are dbase III (ie can be imported into Excel) you can use the foreign package to import them require(foreign) # get a list of files listd <- list.files(.....) # loop or otherwise for (j in seq_along(lisd) ) { # Example for 1 file (you will have to use something different for > 1) x <- read.dbf(list[j], as.is = TRUE) } Regards Duncan Mackay Department of Agronomy and Soil Science University of New England ARMIDALE NSW 2351 Email home: mac...@northnet.com.au At 00:35 17/04/2009, you wrote: >good morning > >This question is not a stats question per say but a data management and >lattice plotting problem. I apologize now if I'm asking an inappropriate >question to this gracious group. > >I'm need to bring in approximately 100 *.dbf files into R but I'm having >difficultly understanding several examples I've tracked down regarding this >procedure and could benefit from your suggestions. > >One example I've found does the following: > >DF <- lappy(dir(pattern="file.*\\.txt"), read.table, sep=";". header= TRUE) >names(DF) <- paste("data", seq_along(DF), sep = "") > >This solution will not work for me for at least 2 reasons: > >1) I need to modify the files after I import them by adding three new >parameters to each file prior to combining them into a common data.frame > For example one of my files is called SRF_DryDry_stats.dbf. The name of >the file tells me that it refers to two conditions; 1) SRF = an indictor >region field, and 2) DryDry = dry hydrological conditions. I also know that >the data refer to a particular species. > >The data in the file include some general summarizing statistics (Min, >Max, Range, Mean, and STD). After modifying the file, I need a species >field, the SRF field and the hydro condition parameters in the file. After >this modification, I need to "cbind" these files into a common file. > >2) The goal is to use the common file to produce a series of lattice >barchart graphs using the three new parameters as factors and plotting the >some of the statistics in the lattice call statements. > >Is there a clean way of accomplishing these tasks or should the brute force >approach be taken? > > >Steve Friedman Ph. D. >Spatial Statistical Analyst >Everglades and Dry Tortugas National Park >950 N Krome Ave (3rd Floor) >Homestead, Florida 33034 > >steve_fried...@nps.gov >Office (305) 224 - 4282 >Fax (305) 224 - 4147 > >______________________________________________ >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.