Stats progs: Importing data into R

We'll cover two scenarios: 1) you have your data in a .csv (comma delimited) file, 2) you have your data in a .xls (Excel) file.

In either case, your data should be formated to have the first row as the variable name and the next rows as the data:

age weight other

12 25 63

13 67 67

... ... ...

-.csv files-

For .csv files, R has a built-in function that you can use to sort of "upload" you data:

read.csv(file.choose())

This will open a little window where you can browse and select your .csv file.

Or, if you know the exact location of your file, you can use (I made a folder on my desktop and a file named data1.csv):

read.csv("C:\\Users\\Andrew\\Desktop\\Desktop Folder\\data1.csv")

(For some reason you have to use double back-slashes. I don't know why.)

-Excel files-

The package 'xlsReadWrite' has a function read.xls to read .xls files.

Funny thing is, this package doesn't come installed in R. No worries. Use the code:

install.packages('xlsReadWrite')

and follow the onscreen instructions.

Then, "load" this package with:

library(xlsReadWrite)

And you're ready to go.

The logic is the same as with the 'read.csv' command- just replace all '.csv' to '.xls':

read.xls(file.choose())

read.xls("C:\\Users\\Andrew\\Desktop\\Desktop Folder\\data1.xls")