Importing an Excel spreadsheet

I am trying to import an *.xls spreadsheet into R. I am doing this as 
follows:

 > read.table(file("A5_DL.xls"))

So I copied it all over to a text document and tried to import that, thus:

 > read.table("A5.txt")

The error I got then was:
Error in scan(file, what, nmax, sep, dec, quote, skip, nlines, 
na.strings, :
line 26 did not have 34 elements
Having gone over the line in question, it all seems to be the same as 
any other row. I really don't want to have to manually re-enter the data 
(some 98 rows x 26 columns).
Thanks

Andy

Hello

I am trying to import an *.xls spreadsheet into R. I am doing this as 
follows:

 > read.table(file("A5_DL.xls"))

But obtain the error:

Error in type.convert(data[[i]], as.is = as.is[i], dec = dec, na.strings 
= character(0)) :
invalid multibyte string at '?????'

So I copied it all over to a text document and tried to import that, thus:

 > read.table("A5.txt")

The error I got then was:

Error in scan(file, what, nmax, sep, dec, quote, skip, nlines, 
na.strings, :
line 26 did not have 34 elements

Having gone over the line in question, it all seems to be the same as 
any other row. I really don't want to have to manually re-enter the data 
(some 98 rows x 26 columns).

Can someone advise me on what I am overlooking here please.

Thanks

Andy

  

If you open the spreadsheet in Excel you can then do "Save as..." and 
select type CSV (comma-delimited text). Once you have the data in CSV 
format, you can use the R function read.csv to import the data.

Cheers,
Bryan

andy wrote:

Hello

I am trying to import an *.xls spreadsheet into R. I am doing this as 
follows:

 > read.table(file("A5_DL.xls"))

But obtain the error:

Error in type.convert(data[[i]], as.is = as.is[i], dec = dec, 
na.strings = character(0)) :
invalid multibyte string at '?????'

So I copied it all over to a text document and tried to import that, 
thus:

 > read.table("A5.txt")

The error I got then was:

Error in scan(file, what, nmax, sep, dec, quote, skip, nlines, 
na.strings, :
line 26 did not have 34 elements

Having gone over the line in question, it all seems to be the same as 
any other row. I really don't want to have to manually re-enter the 
data (some 98 rows x 26 columns).

Can someone advise me on what I am overlooking here please.

Thanks

Andy

  

Bryan K Woods wrote:

If you open the spreadsheet in Excel you can then do "Save as..." and 
select type CSV (comma-delimited text). Once you have the data in CSV 
format, you can use the R function read.csv to import the data.

Cheers,
Bryan

andy wrote:

Hello

I am trying to import an *.xls spreadsheet into R. I am doing this as 

follows:

 > read.table(file("A5_DL.xls"))

But obtain the error:

Error in type.convert(data[[i]], as.is = as.is[i], dec = dec, 
na.strings = character(0)) :
invalid multibyte string at '?????'

So I copied it all over to a text document and tried to import that, 
thus:

 > read.table("A5.txt")

The error I got then was:

Error in scan(file, what, nmax, sep, dec, quote, skip, nlines, 
na.strings, :
line 26 did not have 34 elements

Having gone over the line in question, it all seems to be the same as 

any other row. I really don't want to have to manually re-enter the 
data (some 98 rows x 26 columns).

Can someone advise me on what I am overlooking here please.

Thanks

Andy

That did it - thanks!!

Very steep learning curve ... so appreciate your help.

Cheers

Andy

-- 

"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to 

about the answers." - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"

Hans-Peter wrote:

I am trying to import an *.xls spreadsheet into R. I am doing  
this as

[snip]

    Very steep learning curve ... so appreciate your help.


By looking at http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html ->
http://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-data.pdf -> Chapter 8 Reading
Excel spreadsheets -> you can also find my package xlsReadWrite which
natively reads Excel files (Windows only).

Using *.csv file is probably the more common/recommended way but be
careful with 'cutted decimal places'.

-- 
Regards,
Hans-Peter

Thanks Hans-Peter and Petr. I did use csv, but will probably, in  
future,
use Petr's suggestion about reading from the clipboard:

read.delim("clipboard")

Because as it so happens, there was way too much unnecessary data  
in the
spreadsheet. Plus I am using GNU/Linux, not Windows so some approaches
won't work.

I think this is now sorted.

Many thanks

Andy



-- 

"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to  
worry about the answers." - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"


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