[R] Problem reading mixed CSV file

[Berend Hasselman]

On 26-03-2012, at 08:26, Berend Hasselman wrote:

> 
> On 26-03-2012, at 08:16, Ashish Agarwal wrote:
> 
>> Why does the output in the following say 2 and not 6?
>> 
>>> count.fields(textConnection("LL1532Ap,ABC# Depot-A+,,1971,8,2
>> + LL1532Ap,ABC# Depot-A+,Bhutan,1971,6,1
>> + LL1532Ap,ABC# Depot-A+,China,1971,17,1
>> + LL1532Ap,ABC# Depot-A+,China,1971,33,1
>> + LL1532Ap,ABC# Depot-A+,HongKong,1971,16,2
>> + LL1532Ap,ABC# Depot-A+,HongKong,1971,17,1
>> + LL1532Ap,ABC# Depot-A+,HongKong,1971,22,1
>> + LL1532Ap,ABC# Depot-A+,HongKong,1971,49,1
>> + LL1532Ap,ABC# Depot-A+,Kazakhstan,1971,20,1
>> + LL1532Ap,ABC# Depot-A+,Kazakhstan,1971,27,1
>> + LL1532Ap,ABC# Depot-A+,Kazakhstan,1971,33,1
>> + LL1532Ap,ABC# Depot-A+,Kazakhstan,1973,15,1
>> + LL1532Ap,ABC# Depot-A+,Romania-Europe,1971,10,1
>> + LL1532Ap,ABC# Depot-A+,Romania-Europe,1973,4,1
>> + LL1532Ap,ABC# Depot-A+,Sanchez-America,1973,9,1
>> + LL1532An,ABC# Depot-A-,,1971,8,2"),sep=",")
>> [1] 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
>>> 
>> 
> 
> Have you done
> 
> ?count.fields
> 
> and read what it says about the argument "sep" and the default?
> 
> So if a comma is the separator what value would you give sep?
Sorry I should have had a closer look at what you had done.

But still ?count.fields should have given you a pointer.

Look at what it says in the entry for argument "comment.char".

You have a character # in your text.
Set comment.char to something other than # .

Berend