I don't think the poster is confused. He is referring to the data()
command and
that one uses semicolon, not comma, and the poster is wondering what the
motivation is for that choice. From ?data
Currently, four formats of data files are supported:
1. files ending '.R' or '.r' are 'source()'d in, with the R
working directory changed temporarily to the directory
containing the respective file.
2. files ending '.RData' or '.rda' are 'load()'ed.
3. files ending '.tab', '.txt' or '.TXT' are read using
'read.table(..., header = TRUE)', and hence result in a data
frame.
4. files ending '.csv' or '.CSV' are read using
'read.table(..., header = TRUE, sep = ";")', and also result
in a data frame.
On 6/15/06, Gregor Gorjanc <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Ben,
>
> you confused read.csv and read.csv2. Separator in read.csv is ",", while
> it is ";" in read.csv2. This is due to use of different decimal symbols
> in some european languages - mine is one of them and I really hate
> this. So the situation is:
>
> decimal separator
> english . ,
> some european lang. , ;
>
> There is then of course also a need to handle decimal separator and this
> is done in read.csv2.
>
> > just out of curiosity:
> >
> > why is the default behavior in data() for reading in .csv files
> > to use sep=";" (semicolon rather than comma)? is this a historical
> > artifact of some sort, or is there other logic to it? It caught
> > me by surprise since I was expecting it to be sep="," as in
> > read.csv() ...
> >
> > cheers
> > Ben Bolker
>
>
> --
> Lep pozdrav / With regards,
> Gregor Gorjanc
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> University of Ljubljana PhD student
> Biotechnical Faculty
> Zootechnical Department URI: http://www.bfro.uni-lj.si/MR/ggorjan
> Groblje 3 mail: gregor.gorjanc <at> bfro.uni-lj.si
>
> SI-1230 Domzale tel: +386 (0)1 72 17 861
> Slovenia, Europe fax: +386 (0)1 72 17 888
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> "One must learn by doing the thing; for though you think you know it,
> you have no certainty until you try." Sophocles ~ 450 B.C.
>
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