All,
I have some csv files I am trying to import. I am finding that quotes inside
strings are escaped in a way R doesn't expect for csv files. The problem only
seems to rear its ugly head when there are an uneven number of internal quotes.
I'll try to recreate the problem:
# set up a matrix, using escape-quote as the internal double quote mark.
x <- data.frame(matrix(data=c("1", "string one", "another string", "2", "quotes
escaped 10' 20\" 5' 30\" \"test string", "final string", "3","third row","last
\" col"),ncol = 3, byrow=TRUE))
> write.csv(x, "test.csv")
# NOTE that write.csv correctly created the three internal quotes ' " ' by
using double quotes ' "" '.
# here's what got written
"","X1","X2","X3"
"1","1","string one","another string"
"2","2","quotes escaped 10' 20"" 5' 30"" ""test string","final string"
"3","3","third row","last "" col"
# Importing test.csv works fine.
> read.csv("test.csv")
X X1 X2 X3
1 1 1 string one another string
2 2 2 quotes escaped 10' 20" 5' 30" "test string final string
3 3 3 third row last " col
# this looks good.
# now, please go and open "test.csv" with a text editor and replace all the
double quotes '""' with the
# quote escaped ' \" ' as is found in my data set. Like this:
"","X1","X2","X3"
"1","1","string one","another string"
"2","2","quotes escaped 10' 20\" 5' 30\" \"test string","final string"
"3","3","third row","last \" col"
# this breaks read.csv:
> read.csv("test.csv")
X X1
X2 X3
1 1 1
string one another string
2 2 2 quotes escaped 10' 20\\ 5' 30\\ \\test ( file://\test ) string,final
string\n3,3,third row,last \\ col
# we now have only two rows, with all the data captured in col2 row2
Any suggestions on how to fix this behavior? I've tried fiddling with
quote="\"" to no avail, obviously. Interestingly, an even number of escaped
quotes within a field is loaded correctly, which certainly threw me for a while!
Thank you in advance,
Tim
______________________________________________
R-help@r-project.org 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.
