[R] Problem reading mixed CSV file

[David Winsemius]

On Mar 16, 2012, at 1:11 PM, Ashish Agarwal wrote:

> I want to import this CSV file into R.
>
> The CSV file is
>
> ,,,1968,21,0
> ,,Boston,1968,13,0
> ,,Boston,1968,18,0
> ,,Chicago,1967,44,0
> ,,Providence,1968,17,0
> ,,Providence,1969,48,0
> ,,Binky,1968,24,0
> ,,Chicago,1968,23,0
> ,,Dally,1968,7,0
> ,,Raleigh, North Carol,1968,25,0
> Addy ABC-Dogs Stars-W8.1,,Providence,1968,38,0
> DEF_REQPRF/,,Dartmouth,1967,31,1
> PL,,,1967,38,1
> XY,PopatLal,,1967,5,1
> XY,PopatLal,,1967,6,8
> XY,PopatLal,,1967,7,7
> XY,PopatLal,,1967,9,1
> XY,PopatLal,,1967,10,1
> XY,PopatLal,,1967,13,1
> XY,PopatLal,Boston,1967,6,1
> XY,PopatLal,Boston,1967,7,11
> XY,PopatLal,Boston,1967,9,2
> XY,PopatLal,Boston,1967,10,3
> XY,PopatLal,Boston,1967,7,2
>
> I tried using scan and read.table but results are not visible :(
>
>> scan("D:/data/temp.csv",list("","","",0,0,0),sep=",") ->x
> Read 51 records
>> x
> [[1]]
>  [1] "ÿþ" ""   ""   ""   ""   ""   ""   ""   ""   ""   ""   ""    
> ""   ""   ""
> [16] ""   ""   ""   ""   ""   ""   ""   ""   ""   ""   ""   ""    
> ""   ""   ""
> [31] ""   ""   ""   ""   ""   ""   ""   ""   ""   ""   ""   ""    
> ""   ""   ""
> [46] ""   ""   ""   ""   ""   ""
> ....
>
>> read.table("D:/data/temp.csv",header=F,sep=",") ->x
>> x
>    V1 V2
> 1   ÿþ NA
> 2      NA
> 3      NA
> 4      NA
>
> Can somebody please help in importing this CSV file?

Looks like an encoding mismatch. You have not offered the requested  
information about you setup so further comment would all be guesswork.  
But you can perhaps educate yourself by reading:

?Encoding

And line ten has 7 elements.

 > count.fields(textConnection(",,,1968,21,0
+ ,,Boston,1968,13,0
+ ,,Boston,1968,18,0
+ ,,Chicago,1967,44,0
+ ,,Providence,1968,17,0
+ ,,Providence,1969,48,0
+ ,,Binky,1968,24,0
+ ,,Chicago,1968,23,0
+ ,,Dally,1968,7,0
+ ,,Raleigh, North Carol,1968,25,0
+ Addy ABC-Dogs Stars-W8.1,,Providence,1968,38,0
+ DEF_REQPRF/,,Dartmouth,1967,31,1
+ PL,,,1967,38,1
+ XY,PopatLal,,1967,5,1
+ XY,PopatLal,,1967,6,8
+ XY,PopatLal,,1967,7,7
+ XY,PopatLal,,1967,9,1
+ XY,PopatLal,,1967,10,1
+ XY,PopatLal,,1967,13,1
+ XY,PopatLal,Boston,1967,6,1
+ XY,PopatLal,Boston,1967,7,11
+ XY,PopatLal,Boston,1967,9,2
+ XY,PopatLal,Boston,1967,10,3
+ XY,PopatLal,Boston,1967,7,2"),sep=",")
  [1] 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 7 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6

>
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David Winsemius, MD
West Hartford, CT