R-helpers
I have 120 small Excel sheets to read and I am using library(xlsReadWrite): one example below. I had hoped to read sheets by looping over a list of numbers in their name (eg Book1.xls, Book2.xls, etc). I thought I had seen examples which used eval-parse-paste in this way. However, I have not been able to get it to work.. 1. is this a feasible approach? 2. if not advice would be welcome. 3. Equally, advice about a better approach would also be v. welcome. I haven't included the data because my failed attempt is data-independent (and probably more basic). Michael Anyadike-Danes ############# show that read.xls works > test <- read.xls("Book1.xls",sheet=1,from=4,colClasses="numeric") > str(test) 'data.frame': 23 obs. of 13 variables: $ Off.Flows..Thousands.: num 117.19 NaN NA 1.43 2.26 ... $ Off.Flows..Thousands.: num 8.42 NaN NA 0.08 0.11 0.01 0.11 1.59 0.16 0.04 ... $ Off.Flows..Thousands.: num 20 NaN NA 0.2 0.3 0.02 0.32 4.39 0.41 0.11 ... $ Off.Flows..Thousands.: num 12.36 NaN NA 0.14 0.27 ... $ Off.Flows..Thousands.: num 7.59 NaN NA 0.11 0.18 0.01 0.14 1.46 0.23 0.06 ... $ Off.Flows..Thousands.: num 10.31 NaN NA 0.12 0.23 ... $ Off.Flows..Thousands.: num 7.55 NaN NA 0.08 0.2 0.01 0.11 1.6 0.23 0.05 ... $ Off.Flows..Thousands.: num 10.57 NaN NA 0.19 0.21 ... $ Off.Flows..Thousands.: num 9.36 NaN NA 0.13 0.26 0.02 0.13 2.12 0.27 0.07 ... $ Off.Flows..Thousands.: num 8.21 NaN NA 0.1 0.19 0.01 0.1 1.9 0.23 0.06 ... $ Off.Flows..Thousands.: num 9.04 NaN NA 0.13 0.11 0.01 0.17 1.54 0.17 0.05 ... $ Off.Flows..Thousands.: num 13.42 NaN NA 0.14 0.19 ... $ Off.Flows..Thousands.: num 0.37 NaN NA NaN 0.01 NaN 0.01 0.05 0.02 NaN ... ############### simple minded attempt substituting eval-parse-paste > nam <- 1 > test <- eval(parse(paste('read.xls("Book',nam,'.xls",sheet=1,from=4,colClasses=" numeric")',sep=''))) Error in file(file, "r") : unable to open connection In addition: Warning message: In file(file, "r") : cannot open file 'read.xls("Book1.xls",sheet=1,from=4,colClasses="numeric")', reason 'Invalid argument' ############### stripping off eval, looking for clues > parse(paste('read.xls("Book',nam,'.xls",sheet=1,from=4,colClasses="numer ic")',sep='')) Error in file(file, "r") : unable to open connection In addition: Warning message: In file(file, "r") : cannot open file 'read.xls("Book1.xls",sheet=1,from=4,colClasses="numeric")', reason 'Invalid argument' ############### stripping off parse, still looking for clues > paste('read.xls("Book',nam,'.xls",sheet=1,from=4,colClasses="numeric")', sep='') [1] "read.xls(\"Book1.xls\",sheet=1,from=4,colClasses=\"numeric\")" ################################ Economic Research Institute of Northern Ireland Floral Buildings 2-14 East Bridge Street Belfast BT1 3NQ Tel: (028) 90727362 Fax: (028) 90319003 [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ 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.