[R] Reading # in file with read.csv

Sundar Dorai-Raj sundar.dorai-raj at pdf.com
Tue Oct 11 20:31:10 CEST 2005



Michel Friesenhahn wrote:
> I'm using read.csv to read in a csv file containing '#' characters.  For
> example, say I'm reading the following file (test.csv):
> 
> var1,var2,var3
> a,b,c
> d,e#,f
> g,h,i
> 
> It outputs:
> 
> 
>>read.csv("Raw Data\\test.csv")
> 
>   var1 var2 var3
> 1    a    b    c
> 2    d    e
> 3    g    h    i
> Warning message:
> incomplete final line found by readTableHeader on 'Raw Data\test.csv'
> 
> read.csv appears to be treating '#' as a comment even in input data.  Is there a
> way to turn this interpretation off?
> 


 From ?read.csv:

comment.char: character: a character vector of length one containing a
           single character or an empty string.  Use '""' to turn off
           the interpretation of comments altogether.

Thus, you should use:

read.csv("Raw Data\\test.csv", comment.char = "")

--sundar




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