Similar story with gene names. I have a few genes such as SEP7, SEP10... if the file is touched by Excel, they're gone! I can avoid using Excel, but I can't be sure that when I receive a file from somebody else it will not contain that sort of errors. The first thing I do when I get a new Office version is disable all teh automatic BS that it tries to do to "help" you. Incredibly, the behaviour with dates in Excel cannot be disabled!
Jose Quoting Moshe Olshansky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > This is very consistent with Microsoft's philosophy: > they know better than you what you want to do. > > --- David Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> >> A common process when data is obtained in an Excel >> spreadsheet is to save >> the spreadsheet as a .csv file then read it into R. >> Experienced users >> might have learned to be wary of dates (as I have) >> but possibly have not >> experienced what just happened to me. I thought I >> might just share it with >> r-help as a cautionary tale. >> >> I received an Excel file giving patient details. >> Each patient had an ID >> code in the form of three letters followed by four >> digits. (Actually a New >> Zealand National Health Identification.) I saved the >> .xls file as .csv. >> Then I opened up the .csv (with Excel) to look at >> it. In the column of ID >> codes I saw: Aug-99. Clicking on that entry it >> showed 1/08/2699. >> >> In a column of character data, Excel had interpreted >> AUG2699 as a date. >> >> The .csv did not actually have a date in that cell, >> but if I had saved the >> .csv file it would have. >> >> David Scott >> >> > _________________________________________________________________ >> David Scott Department of Statistics, Tamaki Campus >> The University of Auckland, PB 92019 >> Auckland 1142, NEW ZEALAND >> Phone: +64 9 373 7599 ext 86830 Fax: +64 9 373 7000 >> Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> >> Graduate Officer, Department of Statistics >> Director of Consulting, Department of Statistics >> >> ______________________________________________ >> 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. >> > > ______________________________________________ > 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. > > -- Dr. Jose I. de las Heras Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology Phone: +44 (0)131 6513374 Institute for Cell & Molecular Biology Fax: +44 (0)131 6507360 Swann Building, Mayfield Road University of Edinburgh Edinburgh EH9 3JR UK -- The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. ______________________________________________ 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.
