Re: [R-SIG-Mac] Some introductory questions
Hi Brodie,
Thanks for your suggestions, I definitely appreciate it.
Yes, I realize these aren’t Mac-specific questions, so forgive a new member
the mistake of accidentally posting to the wrong listserv. I realized that
after the fact, but there it is.
I think I discovered two problems today that I got worked out. The first
was a permissions problem that is macOS-specific: I installed XQuartz, and
inside my xterms, I was unable even execute simple commands such as ‘ls’.
Google to the rescue. After that, I got the permissions sorted out, and
those commands worked just fine. I suspect because I couldn’t even do
things like that, that that’s why I was getting (IIRC) “Operation not
permitted” errors *inside of R* trying to open a file. Being new to it, it
appeared to me that R was the cause of my problem. Once I got that sorted
out, it was no issue.
The second problem was figuring out which file operation method to use.
file.choose() worked for me, and it was quite easy to wrap this with a
read.table(), so that was a nice bit of learning. (The CLI did not permit
me to do anything other than type in a fully-qualified path to my data
files, but in R.app, it nicely opened up a file selection dialog, about
which I was very pleased.)
One of the reasons I didn’t initially provide a lot of supplementary
information was that I figured if anyone had any suggestions based on what
the problem sounded like, they might have vectored me in the right
direction. Typically I provide a lot of detail up front but that ends up
getting lost on people, so I’ve learned to start general and then if
they’re willing to be helpful, I’ll gladly supply the info.
I hadn’t thought of Stack Overflow, but based on the initial reax here, I
started Googling other sites that might provide more useful examples
without the backtalk. Thirty years on the Internet and some things never
change. ;)
Thank you again!
Mike
On September 7, 2020 at 10:04:29 PM, brodie gaslam (brodie.gas...@yahoo.com)
wrote:
> On Monday, September 7, 2020, 6:08:51 PM EDT, Mike Feher <
mfeher1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Peter,
>
> Here is a snippet of the code I was trying to start with:
>
> filepath1 <- file("/Users/michaelfeher/Documents/R
> Documents/COVID19/20200906-1822-total-cases-jones.data")
> filepath1
> TotalCasesJones <- read.table(filepath1)
>
> This definitely did not work for me.
>
> Mike
Mike,
There are probably a couple of issues here to think about:
1. Do you have reason to think this is a Mac specific issue? If not
this is likely not the right mailing list. Perhaps r-help might be
better, although I do think you will find more people willing to
pitch in on Stackoverflow (but avoid cross-posting, so since you
have already posted here you might need to hope someone is willing
to provide you an answer).
2. The reason you are getting the reactions you are in this thread
(apart from the mac-specific issue) is that there is not enough
information for others to debug your problems. E.g. what does the
file look like, in what way does it "definitely not work"?. Do you
get an error? Or do you import something that doesn't look like
what you expected? These are all things that are needed by anyone
that will want to help you, and it frustrates some that you are not
providing them of your own initiative.
If I were in your shoes I would try my luck on stackoverflow, or
alternatively, read through several threads on R-help to figure out
how the Q/A process works there and ask questions in ways that are
likely to elicit answers. This is not easy to do and take some work
to figure out, but when asking for folks time to help you it is a good
idea to try to do some home work ahead of time.
I speak only for myself, and sincerely hope this non-answer is helpful
to you even if it doesn't actually address your questions.
Best,
Brodie.
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Re: [R-SIG-Mac] Some introductory questions
> On Monday, September 7, 2020, 6:08:51 PM EDT, Mike Feher
> wrote:
>
> Hi Peter,
>
> Here is a snippet of the code I was trying to start with:
>
> filepath1 <- file("/Users/michaelfeher/Documents/R
> Documents/COVID19/20200906-1822-total-cases-jones.data")
> filepath1
> TotalCasesJones <- read.table(filepath1)
>
> This definitely did not work for me.
>
> Mike
Mike,
There are probably a couple of issues here to think about:
1. Do you have reason to think this is a Mac specific issue? If not
this is likely not the right mailing list. Perhaps r-help might be
better, although I do think you will find more people willing to
pitch in on Stackoverflow (but avoid cross-posting, so since you
have already posted here you might need to hope someone is willing
to provide you an answer).
2. The reason you are getting the reactions you are in this thread
(apart from the mac-specific issue) is that there is not enough
information for others to debug your problems. E.g. what does the
file look like, in what way does it "definitely not work"?. Do you
get an error? Or do you import something that doesn't look like
what you expected? These are all things that are needed by anyone
that will want to help you, and it frustrates some that you are not
providing them of your own initiative.
If I were in your shoes I would try my luck on stackoverflow, or
alternatively, read through several threads on R-help to figure out
how the Q/A process works there and ask questions in ways that are
likely to elicit answers. This is not easy to do and take some work
to figure out, but when asking for folks time to help you it is a good
idea to try to do some home work ahead of time.
I speak only for myself, and sincerely hope this non-answer is helpful
to you even if it doesn't actually address your questions.
Best,
Brodie.
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Re: [R-SIG-Mac] Some introductory questions
Great, thank you. I was following along the tutorial session provided in the official documentation and I could not make sense of how they were opening the Michelson-Morely experimental data. It seemed as if they were forcing the source file to be read in from some library location, where in all likelihood, users would prefer to make custom locations. I will check into both of your suggestions. I appreciate the help! Mike On September 7, 2020 at 1:11:13 AM, Ken Beath (k...@kjbeath.com.au) wrote: > On 7 Sep 2020, at 9:31 am, Mike Feher wrote: > 2. Are these objects, etc. stored on disk somewhere, or are they only > accessible via the interfaces? For example, I would be interested to see > the source code for the demo examples to learn how to do certain things, if > this is possible. (It appeared as if the code for each demo that is > executed as part of the ‘demo()’ command displayed in my R console, but I > just want to be sure about this.) How to find the demo files is contained in the demo help. Type ?demo > 4. I tried to read in a set of dummy space-delimited data saved in an > absolute path on my computer, but it would not work. I tried something in > another path that did not have a subfolder with a space in it (I.e. I plan > on storing my data in a folder called “R Documents” or something similar) > and that didn’t work either, so I’m still wondering whether or not (a) > things have to be in the library location (it seems like you could > customize that) and (b) whether R recognizes spaces in file paths. > Try using file.choose() to locate files using a dialog and it will return the full name. Spaces shouldn’t matter provided that everything is enclosed in quotes. Most people don’t use absolute references. They set the working directory and then just use the name of the file. See under the Misc menu. Ken [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ___ R-SIG-Mac mailing list R-SIG-Mac@r-project.org https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac
Re: [R-SIG-Mac] Some introductory questions
Hi Peter,
Here is a snippet of the code I was trying to start with:
filepath1 <- file("/Users/michaelfeher/Documents/R
Documents/COVID19/20200906-1822-total-cases-jones.data")
filepath1
TotalCasesJones <- read.table(filepath1)
This definitely did not work for me.
Mike
On September 7, 2020 at 3:50:19 AM, peter dalgaard (pda...@gmail.com) wrote:
> On 7 Sep 2020, at 07:09 , Ken Beath wrote:
>
>> On 7 Sep 2020, at 9:31 am, Mike Feher wrote:
>
[snip]
>> 4. I tried to read in a set of dummy space-delimited data saved in an
>> absolute path on my computer, but it would not work. I tried something
in
>> another path that did not have a subfolder with a space in it (I.e. I
plan
>> on storing my data in a folder called “R Documents” or something
similar)
>> and that didn’t work either, so I’m still wondering whether or not (a)
>> things have to be in the library location (it seems like you could
>> customize that) and (b) whether R recognizes spaces in file paths.
>>
>
> Try using file.choose() to locate files using a dialog and it will return
the full name. Spaces shouldn’t matter provided that everything is enclosed
in quotes. Most people don’t use absolute references. They set the working
directory and then just use the name of the file. See under the Misc menu.
Also, how do you "read in" the data? Usually, read.table() or somesuch
would be involved, although RStudio has an "Import data" functionality.
-pd
--
Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
Phone: (+45)38153501
Office: A 4.23
Email: pd@cbs.dk Priv: pda...@gmail.com
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Re: [R-SIG-Mac] noob asked for help
Thank you, Brodie. I can do without the 1992 level of Useness sarcasm when reaching out for answers. I consulted the documentation, and they give a very specific example. I consulted the tutorial, and it gives a very specific example. Neither were suited to identifying answers to my own particular questions. At least going forward, I will know who to look to for useful information and helpful guidance, and likely will suggest documentation changes as I go. And you are correct, I was not at all pleased to see this harsh level of reaction; some people perhaps feel the only power they have in their lives is to assert some supposed level of superiority rather than seeking to understand and be helpful. Mike On September 7, 2020 at 8:18:30 AM, brodie gaslam via R-SIG-Mac ( r-sig-mac@r-project.org) wrote: My view on these things is to either not respond, or try to increase the level of understanding so that future questions may be better. I don't think you meant it that way, but I can't imagine anyone seeing this as the aftermath of asking a question is going to feel particularly good about themselves. We can always gently direct people back to SO if we do not wish to answer newbie questions. >On Monday, September 7, 2020, 6:57:55 AM EDT, Carl Witthoft < c...@witthoft.com> wrote: > >For those who haven't checked in a while, the sad state of affairs over >at StackOverflow.com is that 99% of the R-tagged questions there are at >this level of [non]understanding. We should consider ourselves very >lucky that r-sig-mac remains almost entirely devoid of such stuff. > >>> On Sep 6, 2020, at 4:31 PM, Mike Feher wrote: >>> >>> Greetings, >>> >>> As I’m getting familiar with R, I have some basic questions that I thought >>> of to shoot to useRs: >[snip] > >-- >Carl Witthoft >c...@witthoft.com >resume: https://app.box.com/file/498153801347 > >___ >R-SIG-Mac mailing list >R-SIG-Mac@r-project.org >https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac ___ R-SIG-Mac mailing list R-SIG-Mac@r-project.org https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ___ R-SIG-Mac mailing list R-SIG-Mac@r-project.org https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac
Re: [R-SIG-Mac] noob asked for help
My view on these things is to either not respond, or try to increase the level of understanding so that future questions may be better. I don't think you meant it that way, but I can't imagine anyone seeing this as the aftermath of asking a question is going to feel particularly good about themselves. We can always gently direct people back to SO if we do not wish to answer newbie questions. >On Monday, September 7, 2020, 6:57:55 AM EDT, Carl Witthoft > wrote: > >For those who haven't checked in a while, the sad state of affairs over >at StackOverflow.com is that 99% of the R-tagged questions there are at >this level of [non]understanding. We should consider ourselves very >lucky that r-sig-mac remains almost entirely devoid of such stuff. > >>> On Sep 6, 2020, at 4:31 PM, Mike Feher wrote: >>> >>> Greetings, >>> >>> As I’m getting familiar with R, I have some basic questions that I thought >>> of to shoot to useRs: >[snip] > >-- >Carl Witthoft >c...@witthoft.com >resume: https://app.box.com/file/498153801347 > >___ >R-SIG-Mac mailing list >R-SIG-Mac@r-project.org >https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac ___ R-SIG-Mac mailing list R-SIG-Mac@r-project.org https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac
Re: [R-SIG-Mac] noob asked for help
For those who haven't checked in a while, the sad state of affairs over at StackOverflow.com is that 99% of the R-tagged questions there are at this level of [non]understanding. We should consider ourselves very lucky that r-sig-mac remains almost entirely devoid of such stuff. On Sep 6, 2020, at 4:31 PM, Mike Feher wrote: Greetings, As I’m getting familiar with R, I have some basic questions that I thought of to shoot to useRs: [snip] -- Carl Witthoft c...@witthoft.com resume: https://app.box.com/file/498153801347 ___ R-SIG-Mac mailing list R-SIG-Mac@r-project.org https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac
Re: [R-SIG-Mac] Some introductory questions
> On 7 Sep 2020, at 07:09 , Ken Beath wrote: > >> On 7 Sep 2020, at 9:31 am, Mike Feher wrote: > [snip] >> 4. I tried to read in a set of dummy space-delimited data saved in an >> absolute path on my computer, but it would not work. I tried something in >> another path that did not have a subfolder with a space in it (I.e. I plan >> on storing my data in a folder called “R Documents” or something similar) >> and that didn’t work either, so I’m still wondering whether or not (a) >> things have to be in the library location (it seems like you could >> customize that) and (b) whether R recognizes spaces in file paths. >> > > Try using file.choose() to locate files using a dialog and it will return the > full name. Spaces shouldn’t matter provided that everything is enclosed in > quotes. Most people don’t use absolute references. They set the working > directory and then just use the name of the file. See under the Misc menu. Also, how do you "read in" the data? Usually, read.table() or somesuch would be involved, although RStudio has an "Import data" functionality. -pd -- Peter Dalgaard, Professor, Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark Phone: (+45)38153501 Office: A 4.23 Email: pd@cbs.dk Priv: pda...@gmail.com ___ R-SIG-Mac mailing list R-SIG-Mac@r-project.org https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac
