[R] read numeric values with thousands seperator from csv file

[Ista Zahn]

It's not particularly nice, but you could do

Dat <- read.table(textConnection('Date;opening;High;Low;closing;Volume
12/02/08;4,764.95;4,897.62;4,729.13;4,895.31;-
13/02/08;4,868.02;4,927.81;4,833.85;4,898.60;-
14/02/08;4,942.18;4,962.43;4,877.88;4,895.99;-'), sep=";",
header=TRUE, colClasses="character")

Dat$opening <- as.numeric(gsub(",", "", Dat$opening))
Dat$High <- as.numeric(gsub(",", "", Dat$High))
Dat$Low <-  as.numeric(gsub(",", "", Dat$Low))
Dat$closing <- as.numeric(gsub(",", "", Dat$closing))

-Ista

On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 7:39 PM, Mark Breman <breman.mark at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Is there an easy way to read a csv file with numeric values that contain
> thousands seperators. The file looks like this:
>
> Date;opening;High;Low;closing;Volume
> 12/02/08;4,764.95;4,897.62;4,729.13;4,895.31;-
> 13/02/08;4,868.02;4,927.81;4,833.85;4,898.60;-
> 14/02/08;4,942.18;4,962.43;4,877.88;4,895.99;-
>
> I want to get the numeric values as..., well, numeric values, and not as
> character strings.
>
> I tried read.csv() with the colClasses parameter but that does not help and
> it looks like read.csv() does not support the big.mark="," parameter.
>
> Thanks,
>
> -Mark-
>
>        [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
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-- 
Ista Zahn
Graduate student
University of Rochester
Department of Clinical and Social Psychology
http://yourpsyche.org