[R] RE: (CSV files)

[Peter Dalgaard BSA]

"Patrick Connolly" <P.Connolly at hortresearch.co.nz> writes:

> |> Danish settings will do that too as well as those of large parts of
> |> continental Europe. Hence the existence of read.csv2() and in 1.2 also
> |> read.delim2(). In fact some versions of Excel will write .csv in that
> |> format and then try to use the comma as separator when reading the
> |> file back in....
> |> 
> |> (And SAS uses '.' and ',' when im/exporting CSV irrespective of
> |> locale, whereas SPSS uses ',' and ';' according to windows settings.
> |> So over here they can't read eachothers CSV files without substantial
> |> wand-waving. Sigh.)
> 
> 
> Perhaps I've missed something in the last 6 years or so, but I can't
> understand why anyone would bother with CSV files when what Excel
> calls a "Text (Tab delimited) *.txt" file seems to avoid any need for
> wand waving.
> 
> Maybe I live in a sheltered environment.....

An English-language one for a start. Even TAB-separated files have the
decimal separator issue... Also, watch out with empty fields.

(And folklore has it that there are still emailers that do strange
things to TAB characters.)

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Blegdamsvej 3  
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     2200 Cph. N   
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph: (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk)             FAX: (+45) 35327907
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