Import data from local file directory or webpage into the R environment

Usage

read_dat(
  x,
  data.type = NULL,
  is.map = FALSE,
  drv = NULL,
  dbname = NULL,
  user = NULL,
  password = NULL,
  ...
)

Arguments

x: Name and path of dataset to be read in. To load data directly from a webpage, x should be the web address.
data.type: Optional. Data type can be defined by user or based on the file extension. If undefined, data.type is the string after the last period or equal sign. data.type must be defined if x is the path to a shape folder, if the file is a Google spreadsheet use data.type = 'google', or if the correct extension cannot be derived from x. R, comma-delimited, tab-delimited, excel, Matlab, json, geojson, sas, spss, stata, and html, and XML data extensions do not have to be specified.
is.map: logical, for .json file extension, set is.map = TRUE if data is a spatial file. Spatial files ending in .json will not be read in properly unless is.map = TRUE.
drv: Use with sql files. Database driver.
dbname: Use with sql files. If required, database name.
user: Use with sql files. If required, user name for SQL database.
password: Use with sql files. If required, SQL database password.
...: Optional arguments

Details

Uses the appropriate function to read in data based on data type. Use write_dat to save data to the data folder in the project directory. Supported data types include shape, csv, json, matlab, R, spss, and stata files. Use data.type = 'shape' if x is the path to a shape folder. Use data.type = 'google' if the file is a Google spreadsheet.

For sql files, use data.type = 'sql'. The function will connect to the specified DBI and pull the table. Users must specify the DBI driver (drv), for example: RSQLite::SQLite(), RPostgreSQL::PostgreSQL(), odbc::odbc(). Further arguments may be required, including database name (dbname), user id (user), and password (password).

Additional arguments can be added, such as skip lines skip = 2 and header header = FALSE. To specify the separator argument for a delimited file, include tab-delimited, specify data.type = 'delim'.

For more details, see load for loading R objects, read_csv for reading in comma separated value files, read_tsv for reading in tab separated value files, read_delim for reading in delimited files, read_excel for reading in excel files (xls, xlsx), st_read for reading in geojson , GeoPackage files, and shape files, readMat for reading in matlab data files, read_dta for reading in stata data files, read_spss for reading in spss data files, read_sas for reading in sas data files, and fromJSON for reading in json files. read_xml for reading in XML files. Further processing may be required. read_html for reading in html tables. See read_sheet in range_read for reading in google spreadsheets. Google spreadsheets require data.type be specified. Use data.type = 'google'. read_ods for reading in open document spreadsheets.

Examples

if (FALSE) {
# Read in shape file
dat <- read_dat('C:/data/nmfs_manage_simple', data.type = 'shape')

# Read in spatial data file in json format
dat <- read_dat('C:/data/nmfs_manage_simple.json', is.map = TRUE)

# read in data directly from web page
dat <- read_dat("https://s3.amazonaws.com/assets.datacamp.com/blog_assets/test.txt", 
                data.type = 'delim', sep = '', header = FALSE)
}