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List:       r-help
Subject:    Re: [R] XLConnect readWorksheet   comma decimal sign
From:       David Winsemius <dwinsemius () comcast ! net>
Date:       2013-11-29 19:39:07
Message-ID: 33144A60-5037-4C76-B950-3376B4B14902 () comcast ! net
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On Nov 29, 2013, at 10:30 AM, Knut Krueger wrote:

> Am 29.11.2013 18:31, schrieb David Winsemius:
> > On Nov 29, 2013, at 6:18 AM, Knut Krueger wrote:
> > 
> > > Am 25.11.2013 13:06, schrieb Knut Krueger:
> > > > > how can I read exel files where the decimal sign is comma instead dot.
> > > > > I get the data as ascii and when converting "3,5" with as.numeric the  3,5 \
> > > > > will be converted to NA
> > > I think here is a major bug because no warning is genereated.
> > You were already advised how to change the defaults for R's input functions' \
> > behaviors with respect to decimal separators. (I would add that you should also \
> > become familiar with the 'colClasses' argument.)
> ? I was adviced:
> > ither change comma to dot in Excel (but sometimes Excel is rather reluctant to \
> > accept such changes).

Well, I suppose you were, but I was referring to the advice to ' read data with \
option:  dec="," '. The reason I advised to also look at colClasses was to provide a \
mechanism for asserting that certain columns were "numeric". With a combination of \
dec="," and colCalsses="numeric" you would get coercion to 'numeric' after the \
decimal-punkts (as ",") were changed to decimal-points (as ".").

> Thats impossible, we are used to hit the comma

I don't know what that means.

> > 
> > Or change commaa to dot in R which probably can be easily done by gsub command
> Thats also impossible because the data are lost after teh import

Until you show a reproducible example, we will not be able to offer further advice:

> > 
> > Or read data with option dec=",". I do not know XLConnect but in read.table it is \
> > optional parameter and maybe it is also readWorksheet.

I was not making any advice contingent on XLConnect (other than to read it's help \
page to answer your question about how it was importing from xls files. My memory was \
that it used perl scripts but looking at its DESCRIPTION file I see that it is Java \
based.)


> Read data has no problem
> > does anybody know whether Rcmdr and XLCOnnectare using the same or different ways \
> >                 to import Excel?
> > Rcmdr: same ; XLConnect:different
> > 
> > You should read the help pages for XLConnect.
> http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/XLConnect/XLConnect.pdf
> sorry I did not found anything.
> > 
> > > We found also that RCmdr is setting comma separated values to na if there is an \
> > > NA in the column. 
> > > Maybe it more useful to discuss this in the devel group?  (set the follow up to \
> > > DEVEL)
> > No. This is more a sign of your lack of experience with R. There are wiki-pages \
> > with advice about various ways to do Excel input. (You surely cannot think you \
> > are the first to experience this. This has been a difficulty for 15 years, and \
> > more with Excel than with R.)
> 
> Once again I have no problems to get the data inside R but I am looking for a \
> solution to get an error message instead of setting 0,25 to na and only i a few \
> column not in the hole sheet. That's a behaviour what I am expecting from MS not \
> from R

You should post the code you used and the output from head(dfrm) where dfrm is the \
name of the object you created with whatever code you have never shown.  
> But I got definitely wrong inputs with lost data with loadWorkbook.

If you are asking about XLConnect then correspond with the package authors.


> But it is not reproducable. doing the same  with a fresh environment,not after \
> working 5 hours with R,  the excel sheet is imported without error. I am no a \
> newbie in R and i am using it nearly 10 years. Them same problem occoured with \
> RCmdr in the university by a phd Student. I can not reproduce the problem with the \
> same script and the same file. Maybe you can agree that this is strange. Its a kind \
> of "never be sure to get the correct data" and that happened to me the first time \
> with R. 
> Knut
> 
> ______________________________________________
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> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

David Winsemius
Alameda, CA, USA

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