[R] Errors in reading in txt files

[David Winsemius]

> On Dec 15, 2017, at 9:21 AM, lily li <chocold12 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I use the method, df$Time = as.POSIXct(df$Time), but it has the warning
> message:
> Error in as.POSIXlt.character(x, tz, ...) :
>  character string is not in a standard unambiguous format

That's because your date-time data is not in "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M" format. Read:

 ?strptime

-- 
David.
> 
> On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 1:31 PM, MacQueen, Don <macqueen1 at llnl.gov> wrote:
> 
>> In addition to which, I would recommend
>> 
>> df <- read.table("DATAM", header = TRUE, fill = TRUE,
>> stringsAsFactors=FALSE)
>> 
>> and then converting the Time column to POSIXct date-time values using
>>  as.POSIXct()
>> specifying the format using formatting codes found in
>>  ?strptime
>> because the times are not in the POSIXct default format.
>> 
>> 
>> This example might indicate the idea:
>> 
>>> as.POSIXct('2012-10-12 13:14')
>> [1] "2012-10-12 13:14:00 PDT"
>>> class(as.POSIXct('2012-10-12 13:14'))
>> [1] "POSIXct" "POSIXt"
>> 
>> -Don
>> 
>> --
>> Don MacQueen
>> Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
>> 7000 East Ave., L-627
>> Livermore, CA 94550
>> 925-423-1062
>> Lab cell 925-724-7509
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 12/14/17, 11:01 AM, "R-help on behalf of Ista Zahn" <
>> r-help-bounces at r-project.org on behalf of istazahn at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>    On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 1:58 PM, Berend Hasselman <bhh at xs4all.nl>
>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> On 14 Dec 2017, at 19:36, lily li <chocold12 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Hi R users,
>>>> 
>>>> I have a question about reading from text files. The file has the
>> structure
>>>> below:
>>>> 
>>>> Time                            Column1   Column2
>>>> 01.01.2001-12:00:00
>>> 
>>> This line does not contain 3 elements; only one.
>>> You'll have to fix that line. Delete it, prepend it with a comment
>> character of add enough columns.
>> 
>>    I definitely don't recommend that. Instead, read
>> 
>>    ?read.table
>> 
>>    to learn about the "fill" and "header" arguments.
>> 
>>    df = read.table("DATAM", header = TRUE, fill = TRUE)
>> 
>>    will probably work.
>> 
>>    Best,
>>    Ista
>> 
>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Berend
>>> 
>>>> 01.01.2001-24:00:00        12             11
>>>> 01.02.2001-12:00:00        13             10
>>>> 01.02.2001-24:00:00        11             12
>>>> 01.03.2001-12:00:00        15             11
>>>> 01.03.2001-24:00:00        16             10
>>>> ...
>>>> 
>>>> I just use the simple script to open it: df = read.table('DATAM',
>> head=T).
>>>> 
>>>> But it has the error and thus cannot read the file:
>>>> Error in scan(file = file, what = what, sep = sep, quote = quote,
>> dec =
>>>> dec,  :
>>>> line 1 did not have 3 elements
>>>> 
>>>> How to read it with three fixed columns, and how to read the time
>> format in
>>>> the first column correctly? Thanks for your help.
>>>> 
>>>>      [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>>> 
>>>> ______________________________________________
>>>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
>>>> 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.
>>> 
>>> ______________________________________________
>>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
>>> 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.
>> 
>>    ______________________________________________
>>    R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
>>    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.
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
> 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.

David Winsemius
Alameda, CA, USA

'Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.'   -Gehm's Corollary to Clarke's Third Law