[R] header line generated write.table

[Marc Schwartz]

On Wed, 2004-08-18 at 16:42, Y C Tao wrote:
> I want to write following data frame into a CSV file:
>  
>           Col1   Col2  Col3
> Row1   1       1     1
> Row2   2       2     2
>  
> where Row1, Row2 are the row names and Col1, Col2, Col3 are the column
> names.
>  
> The correct CSV file should be:
> ,"Col1","Col2","Col3"
> Row1,1,1,1
> Row2,2,2,2
>  
> However, the one generated by R using write.table(x, file="xyz.csv",
> sep=",") has a header line that reads:
> "Col1","Col2","Col3"
> without the comma at the very beginning.
>  
> As a result, if you open the file in Excel, the column names are not
> correct (shifted to the left by one column).
>  
> Is there a way to get around this?
>  
> Thanks!

The solution is on the help page for ?write.table:

Details

Normally there is no column name for a column of row names. If
col.names=NA a blank column name is added. This can be used to write CSV
files for input to spreadsheets.


Also, the first example on that page gives you:

## To write a CSV file for input to Excel one might use
write.table(x, file = "foo.csv", sep = ",", col.names = NA)


Thus:

> write.table(x, col.names = NA, sep = ",")
"","Col1","Col2","Col3"
"Row1",1,1,1
"Row2",2,2,2

HTH,

Marc Schwartz