Message-ID: <A0220868-F271-4DF1-9BE9-1381A6193B74@auckland.ac.nz>
Date: 2010-12-03T00:26:32Z
From: Rolf Turner
Subject: The behaviour of read.csv().
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.2.00.1012021608280.12888@springer.Berkeley.EDU>
On 3/12/2010, at 1:08 PM, Phil Spector wrote:
> Rolf -
> I'd suggest using
>
> junk <- read.csv("junk.csv",header=TRUE,fill=FALSE)
>
> if you don't want the behaviour you're seeing.
The point is not that I don't want this kind of behaviour.
The point is that it seems to me to be unexpected and dangerous.
I can indeed take precautions against it, now that I know about it,
by specifying fill=FALSE. Given that I remember to do so.
Now that you've pointed it out I can see that this is the reason
for the different behaviour between read.table() and read.csv();
in read.table() fill=FALSE is effectively the default.
Having fill=TRUE being the default in read.csv() strikes me as
being counter-intuitive and dangerous.
cheers,
Rolf