[R] The behaviour of read.csv().

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 05/12/2010 2:14 PM, Rolf Turner wrote:
>
> On 6/12/2010, at 3:00 AM, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
>
>
>>> I was going to suggest using DIF rather than CSV.  It contains more
>>> internal information about the file (including the type of each entry),
>>> but has the disadvantage of being less readable, even though it is ascii.
>
> 	I don't think DIF is really the answer. My colleagues are familiar
> 	with the *.csv concept; they have never heard of ``DIF''.
>
> 	As I have said, we have had but few problems using *.csv.  Better the
> 	devil you know ...
>
> 	Furthermore I have to deal with data provided by various sources ``external''
> 	to the research project that I work for. I have to use the data that these
> 	sources provide, in the format in which they provide it.  If they give me
> 	*.csv files I count myself lucky.
>
> 	Finally, there seems to be no ``write.DIF'' function, i.e. there is no way
> 	to produce *.DIF output, as far as I can tell.  Hence it would not seem
> 	practical to use *.DIF as a data exchange standard.

Sure, those are good points.

>>>
>>> However, in putting together a little demo, I found a couple of bugs in
>>> the R implementation of read.DIF, and it looks as though it ignores the
>>> internal type information.  Sigh.
>>
>> As of r53778, the bugs I noticed should be fixed.  read.DIF now respects
>> the internal type information, so it will keep character strings like
>> "001" as type character (unless you ask it to change the type).
>
>
> 	What does ``r53778'' mean?

Revision 53778 from the version control system.  When you start 
R-patched or R-devel it will print this in the startup message, e.g.

R version 2.13.0 Under development (unstable) (2010-12-05 r53775)
                                                           ^^^^^^

(from just before I saved the changes).

Duncan Murdoch

>
> 		cheers,
>
> 			Rolf