More flexibility in import options would be appreciated in more than
just Excel. The ability to force all imported data to be "character"
(and not made into factors) would be a step in the right direction. Even
on comma delimited text files I occasionally run into problems where
someone has coded responses with both alphas and numbers. If a number
happens to be in the first column then all the alphas get made NA. If an
alpha is first, the column gets imported as character and all the data
is present. The ability to force a character read is present (in the
format string capability in the text input dialog) but very clumsy when
you are importing a large number of variables.
If we were all in full control of the data before we get it many of
these problems could be avoided, but , since we are not, flexibility is
critical.
****************************************
Michael Conklin
VP Analytic Services
Custom Research Inc.
8401 Golden Valley Rd
Minneapolis, MN 55427
mconklin@customresearch.com
612-542-0821 (Voice)
612-542-0864 (Fax)
>>> "David O. Nelson" <daven@llnl.gov> 09/28/99 09:52AM >>>
There are at least 3 of us. I reported a similar problem in S-PLUS
some
months ago relating to importing into data FRAMES with missing values
in the
last few rows of some columns. Statsci asked me for a copy of the
spreadsheet. I sent it to them, but haven't heard back yet.
For those of us work in an Excel-rich environment, caution is advised:
summarize the data frame and look closely at the results.
dave
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-s-news@wubios.wustl.edu
[mailto:owner-s-news@wubios.wustl.edu]On Behalf Of Peter Wollan
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 1999 7:08 AM
To: s-news@wubios.wustl.edu
Subject: [S] Re: Excel Import Problem
[snip]
This may only be a problem to people who use S-plus in an environment
where
Excel is used as a data recording or transfer tool, but surely there
are
more than two of us.
Peter Wollan
wollan@mayo.edu
-
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