read.table, write.table, logicals and spaces?
A solution to your problem is to specify the argument colClasses:
df <- read.table(filename,header=T,sep=',', colClasses=colClasses)
where colClasses is a vector of character strings specifying the data
type of each column. For example:
data <- runif(30)
df <- data.frame(data=data, valid=(data > 0.5))
write.table(df, "tmp.dat", row.names=FALSE, sep=",")
df2 <- read.table("tmp.dat", header=TRUE, colClasses=c("double",
"logical"), sep=",")
print(as.logical(df2$valid))
# [1] TRUE TRUE TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE
TRUE
# [13] TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE FALSE FALSE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE
TRUE
# [25] TRUE TRUE TRUE FALSE TRUE FALSE
If you do not know the data type of a column in advance you can specify
it as NA (note not "NA"), e.g. colClasses=c(NA, "logical"). Specifying
the colClasses argument will also make read.table much faster.
What is happening is that write.table() is first converting your data
frame to a matrix using as.matrix(). Try as.matrix(df) and there you see
why you get " TRUE" and not "TRUE". This is what is written to file.
When read.table() then reads the file it will not read it as a logical,
but as a factor variable, e.g.
df2 <- read.table("tmp.dat", header=TRUE, colClasses=c("double", NA),
sep=",")
df2$valid
[1] TRUE TRUE TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE TRUE [13] TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE FALSE FALSE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE [25] TRUE TRUE TRUE FALSE TRUE FALSE Levels: TRUE FALSE
df2 <- read.table("tmp.dat", header=TRUE, colClasses=c("double",
"logical"), sep=",")
df2$valid
[1] TRUE TRUE TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE TRUE [13] TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE FALSE FALSE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE [25] TRUE TRUE TRUE FALSE TRUE FALSE Note the last line "Levels: TRUE FALSE" in the first case. Best wishes Henrik Bengtsson Mathematical Statistics Centre for Mathematical Sciences Lund University
-----Original Message----- From: owner-r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch [mailto:owner-r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch] On Behalf Of Michael A. Miller Sent: den 23 november 2002 09:14 To: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch Subject: [R] read.table, write.table, logicals and spaces? I have some data frames that contain logical values. When I write the frame to a file with write.table(df, filename, row.names=F, sep=','), I end up with the logicals looking like either ...,FALSE,... or ..., TRUE,... . That space in front of the TRUE is causing me problems when I read the frame again with df <- read.table(filename,header=T,sep=','). Reading the data leaves me with this:
df$valid
[1] TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE [13] TRUE FALSE FALSE TRUE TRUE TRUE FALSE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE [25] TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE Levels: TRUE FALSE
as.logical(df$valid)
[1] NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA [13] NA FALSE FALSE NA NA NA FALSE NA NA NA NA NA [25] NA NA NA NA NA NA
as.character(df$valid)
[1] " TRUE" " TRUE" " TRUE" " TRUE" " TRUE" " TRUE" " TRUE"
" TRUE" " TRUE" [10] " TRUE" " TRUE" " TRUE" " TRUE" "FALSE"
"FALSE" " TRUE" " TRUE" " TRUE" [19] "FALSE" " TRUE" " TRUE"
" TRUE" " TRUE" " TRUE" " TRUE" " TRUE" " TRUE" [28] " TRUE"
" TRUE" " TRUE"
Can anyone suggest a way to read this column so that I can
use it as a logical without having to first do something like
df$valid <- as.logical(sub(' ','',as.character(df$valid)))
Mike
--
Michael A. Miller mmiller3 at iupui.edu
Imaging Sciences, Department of Radiology, IU School of Medicine
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