[R] readxl issue

[Thomas Subia]

Colleagues,

I'm using readxl and dplyr to extract a specific cell from all worksheets in a directory.
All of these worksheets have the same physical layout.

Issue 1: Minus sign replaced by an X after data extraction.

library(plyr)
library(readxl)

files <- list.files(pattern="*.xls", full.names = FALSE)
avgs <- lapply(files, read_excel, sheet="Flow Data", range=("c9"))
avg_list <- as.data.frame(avgs)
trans_avgs <- t(avg_list)
write.table(trans_avgs,"avgs.txt")

Here are the first lines of the avgs.txt file.
"X.0.51571428571428557" 
"X.0.5349795918367346" 
"X.0.4895714285714286" 
"X.0.5112448979591836"

The original Excel file contains
-0.516
-0.535
-0.490
-0.511

It appears that readxl is changing the - sign to an X.
Is there any feature in readxl which I can change so that readxl extracts the minus sign?

Issue 2: Duplicate dates contain additional characters

dates <- lapply(files, read_excel, sheet="Flow Data", range=("h14"))
dates_list <- as.data.frame(dates)
trans_dates <- t(dates_list)
write.table(trans_dates ,"dates.txt")

Here are the first lines of the dates.txt file.

"X43859" 
"X43859.1" 
"X43859.2" 
"X43859.3" 
"X43833"

In Excel, this is what is recorded.

1/29/2020
1/29/2020
1/29/2020
1/29/2020
1/3/2020

It appears that readxl is adding additional characters which are signaling duplicate dates.
Is there any feature in readxl which can I can change to eliminate these additional characters?

Some advice would be appreciated.


Thomas Subia 

Statistician / Senior Quality Engineer
IMG Companies 
225 Mountain Vista Parkway
Livermore, CA 94551
T. (925) 273-1106
F. (925) 273-1111
E. tsubia using imgprecision.com


Precision Manufacturing for Emerging Technologies
imgprecision.com 

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