Where is gdata?

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 10:18 AM, Stephen Liu <satimis at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi Gabor,
>
> - snip -
> ..
>> > The following object(s) are masked from 'package:utils':
>>
>> >:     object.size
>>This is just a message that it can't find perl.  If you don't need to
>> use read.xls then you don't need perl so you can  ignore the message.
>> If you do need to use read.xls then install perl and once you have
>> done that then run installXLSXsupport().
>
> After having installed Strawberry perl the warning disappears.
>
> library(gdata)
> ?read.xls
> works starting "Read Excel files"
>
> I haven't run installXLSXsupport() afterwards.
>
> Just did it without success.
>
>> installXLSXsupport()
> Error: could not find function "installXLSXsupport"
>
> Couldn't proceed further.

Please start at a fresh version of R.  Copy and paste your session
from the R console rather than relating what happened.  Also, what
version of gdata are you using?  Older versions did not have
installXLSXsupport.  Show:

packageDescription("gdata")$Version
win.version()
R.version.string

>
>
> I can't resolve follows;
>
> 1)
> library(AER)
> data()
> starts the datasets of AER
>
> 2)
> library(gdata)
> data()
> gdata is added to the list of master dataset package

This is not clear.  Please provide exact and complete output.

>
>
> B.R.
> Stephen L
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Gabor Grothendieck <ggrothendieck at gmail.com>
> To: Stephen Liu <satimis at yahoo.com>
> Cc: Liviu Andronic <landronimirc at gmail.com>; r-help <r-help at r-project.org>
> Sent: Mon, November 29, 2010 8:39:55 PM
> Subject: Re: [R] Where is gdata?
>
> On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 3:44 AM, Stephen Liu <satimis at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Hi Liviu,
>>
>>> Not if you
>>> library(gdata)
>>> first. Then
>>> ?read.xls
>>
>>> should work.
>>
>> Yes, I did.
>>
>>
>> I found something strange here which I can't explain.
>>
>> Win 7 64bit
>> R 32/64 bit
>>
>> Just rebooted Win 7 and R
>>
>>> library(gdata)
>> gdata: Unable to locate valid perl interpreter
>> gdata:
>> gdata: read.xls() will be unable to read Excel XLS and XLSX files
>> gdata: unless the 'perl=' argument is used to specify the location of a
>> gdata: valid perl intrpreter.
>> gdata:
>> gdata: (To avoid display of this message in the future, please ensure
>> gdata: perl is installed and available on the executable search path.)
>> gdata: Unable to load perl libaries needed by read.xls()
>> gdata: to support 'XLX' (Excel 97-2004) files.
>>
>> gdata: Unable to load perl libaries needed by read.xls()
>> gdata: to support 'XLSX' (Excel 2007+) files.
>>
>> gdata: Run the function 'installXLSXsupport()'
>> gdata: to automatically download and install the perl
>> gdata: libaries needed to support Excel XLS and XLSX formats.
>>
>> Attaching package: 'gdata'
>>
>> The following object(s) are masked from 'package:utils':
>>
>>     object.size
>
> This is just a message that it can't find perl.  If you don't need to
> use read.xls then you don't need perl so you can  ignore the message.
> If you do need to use read.xls then install perl and once you have
> done that then run installXLSXsupport().
>
>>
>>
>> It complains.
>>
>>
>>> ?read.xls
>> starting httpd help server ... done
>>
>> "Read Excel files"
>>
>>
>> Both 32 and 64 bit R worked.
>>
>>
>> If there is NO complaint on running;
>>
>>> library(gdata)
>>
>> Then
>>> ?read.xls
>>
>> can't work.
>
> Can you clarify when ?read.xls works for you and when it does not?
>
>>
>>
>> Perl seems has been installed.  But I can't recall, when and how;
>>
>> C:\>dir C:\Users\satimiswin764\Documents\R\win-library\2.12\gdata\
>> .....
>> 11/22/2010  10:44 AM    <DIR>          perl
>> 11/22/2010  10:44 AM    <DIR>          R
>> 11/22/2010  10:44 AM    <DIR>          unitTests
>> 11/22/2010  10:44 AM    <DIR>          xls
>
>
> The gdata\perl folder contains perl libraries that come with gdata.
> Perl itself is not distributed with gdata and you don't need perl at
> all to use gdata except for read.xls and related functions.
>
> My understanding is that this question has nothing to do with perl nor
> with read.xls and that the problem is that you seem to be able to run
> this:
>
> library(gdata)
> ?read.xls
>
> and sometimes it works and at other times it does not work.  Is that
> right?  Does it occur with any other package?  How about removing
> gdata and reinstalling it?
>
> remove.packages("gdata")
> ... exit R and check if gdata has been removed ...
> ... restart R ...
> install.packages("gdata")
>
>
> --
> Statistics & Software Consulting
> GKX Group, GKX Associates Inc.
> tel: 1-877-GKX-GROUP
> email: ggrothendieck at gmail.com
>
>