There is a hack to get around the problem. It is definitely not a good solution, just a hack.
Open the .csv file in a text editor and select everything. Paste it into an empty Excel sheet. Then use Data -> Text to Columns The third dialog box (at least it is the third one in Excel 2003) allows you to format each column of the data. This is the place where you can switch off the date interpretation of your ID column. AUG1838 probably is not onterpreted as date because Excel dates only start at 1/1/1900. Duncan Murdoch wrote: > On 8/28/2007 3:16 AM, J Dougherty wrote: >> On Monday 27 August 2007 22:21, David Scott wrote: >>> On Tue, 28 Aug 2007, Robert A LaBudde wrote: >>>> If you format the column as "Text", you won't have this problem. By >>>> leaving the cells as "General", you leave it up to Excel to guess at >>>> the correct interpretation. >>> Not true actually. I had converted the column to Text because I saw the >>> interpretation as a date in the .xls file. I saved the .csv file *after* >>> the column had been converted to Text. Looking at the .csv file in a text >>> editor, the entry is correct. >>> >>> I have just rechecked this. >>> >>> On reopening the .csv using Excel, the entry AUG2699 had been interpreted >>> as a date, and was showing as Aug-99. Most bizarre is that the NHI value >>> of AUG1838 has *not* been interpreted as a date. >>> -- Erich Neuwirth, University of Vienna Faculty of Computer Science Computer Supported Didactics Working Group Visit our SunSITE at http://sunsite.univie.ac.at Phone: +43-1-4277-39464 Fax: +43-1-4277-39459 ______________________________________________ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch 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.
