[R] Reading Text Files with RODBC

[Jeff Newmiller]

To be fair, RODBC is just an interface to ODBC, and this is not an ODBC support forum. In my experience, ODBC works alright when used to connect to a SQL database, but is pretty flaky when used to connect to Excel or CSV files.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Newmiller                        The     .....       .....  Go Live...
DCN:<jdnewmil at dcn.davis.ca.us>        Basics: ##.#.       ##.#.  Live Go...
                                      Live:   OO#.. Dead: OO#..  Playing
Research Engineer (Solar/Batteries            O.O#.       #.O#.  with
/Software/Embedded Controllers)               .OO#.       .OO#.  rocks...1k
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.

"Nutter, Benjamin" <NutterB at ccf.org> wrote:

>Ah, yes.  If you can't find the answer to your question, ask a
>different question!
>
>sqldf does, indeed, do what I want.  Thank you
>
>  Benjamin Nutter |  Biostatistician     |  Quantitative Health
>Sciences
>  Cleveland Clinic    |  9500 Euclid Ave.  |  Cleveland, OH 44195 
>| (216) 445-1365
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Gabor Grothendieck [mailto:ggrothendieck at gmail.com] 
>Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2012 1:15 PM
>To: Nutter, Benjamin
>Cc: r-help at r-project.org
>Subject: Re: [R] Reading Text Files with RODBC
>
>On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 10:12 AM, Nutter, Benjamin <NutterB at ccf.org>
>wrote:
>> I'm thoroughly stumped.  I've been playing with RODBC and wanted to
>see if I could retrieve data from text files using this package as well
>(for the most part, this is an intellectual exercise, but occasionally
>I do get data files large enough in CSV format RODBC could be helpful)
>.
>>
>> I set up a DNS called "Text Files" and then ran the following code in
>
>> R
>>
>>> library(RODBC)
>>> mtg <- odbcConnect("Text Files")
>>> sqlTables(mtg)
>>                         TABLE_CAT TABLE_SCHEM    TABLE_NAME  
>> TABLE_TYPE        REMARKS
>> 1 C:\\USERS\\NUTTERB                   <NA>    Core2012.txt          
>   
>> TABLE                 <NA>
>> 2 C:\\USERS\\NUTTERB                   <NA> MTGCards.csv            
> 
>> TABLE                 <NA>
>>> sqlFetch(mtg, "MTGCards.csv")
>> Error in odbcTableExists(channel, sqtable) :
>>  'MTGCards.csv': table not found on channel
>>>
>>
>> MTGCards.csv is an export from an MS Access database, and I'm able to
>get it out of Access, and I'm also able to connect to our Oracle
>databases.  So I'm not sure what it is I'm not getting about reading
>the text files.  If anyone has done this successfully and has any
>pointers, I'd appreciate it.  So far I've not been able to solve it
>with documentation from RODBC, RStudio (I get the same error messages
>when I use the RGui), or Microsoft ODBC drivers.
>>
>
>This isn't precisely what you are asking for but if the idea is to
>apply an sql statement to a csv file then read.csv.sql in the sqldf
>package can apply an sql statement to a csv file reading the result
>into R.  If you omit the sql statement then it reads it all in.
>
>--
>Statistics & Software Consulting
>GKX Group, GKX Associates Inc.
>tel: 1-877-GKX-GROUP
>email: ggrothendieck at gmail.com
>
>
>===================================
>
> Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail
>
>Cleveland Clinic is ranked one of the top hospitals
>in America by U.S.News & World Report (2010).  
>Visit us online at http://www.clevelandclinic.org for
>a complete listing of our services, staff and
>locations.
>
>
>Confidentiality Note:  This message is intended for
>use\...{{dropped:13}}
>
>______________________________________________
>R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>PLEASE do read the posting guide
>http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.