[R] Problems with read.table and data structure

[William Dunlap]

> data <- read.table("small.txt", header = TRUE, sep = "\t", dec = ".", row.names=1)
> ...
> Factor w/ 358 levels "0,123111694",..: 11 14 50 12 38 44 13 76 31 30

It looks like your data file used commas for the decimal point.  Is that right?
You used dec="." when reading it; does dec="," work better?

Bill Dunlap
TIBCO Software
wdunlap tibco.com


On Fri, Jul 11, 2014 at 7:15 AM, Tim Richter-Heitmann
<trichter at uni-bremen.de> wrote:
>
> Hi there!
>
> I have huge datafile of 600 columns 360 samples:
>
> data <- read.table("small.txt", header = TRUE, sep = "\t", dec = ".",
> row.names=1)
>
> The txt.file (compiled with excel) is showing me only numbers, however R
> gives me the structure of ANY column as "factor".
>
> When i try "stringsAsFactors=FALSE" in the read command, the structure
> of the dataset becomes "character."
>
> When i try as.numeric(data), i get
>
> Error: (list) object cannot be coerced to type 'double'
>
>
> even, if i try to subset columns with [].
>
>
> When i try as.numeric on single columns with $, i am successful, but the numbers dont make any sense at all, as the factors are not converted by their levels:
>
>
> Factor w/ 358 levels "0,123111694",..: 11 14 50 12 38 44 13 76 31 30
>
>
> becomes
>
>
> num  11 14 50 12 38 44 13 76 31 30
>
>
> whereas i would need the levels, though!
>
>
> I suspect excel to mess up the "save as tab-delimited text", but the text file seems fine with me on surface (i dont know how the numbers are stored  internally). I just see correct numbers, also the View command
> yields the correct content.
>
>
>
> Anyone knows help? Its pretty annoying.
>
>
>
> Thank you!
>
> --
> Tim Richter-Heitmann
>
>
>         [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
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