How To Import Data from a File in R Programming

The collection of facts is known as data. Data can be in different forms. To analyze data using R programming Language, data should be first imported in R which can be in different formats like txt, CSV, or any other delimiter-separated files. After importing data then manipulate, analyze, and report it.

Import Data from a File in R Programming Language

In this article, we are going to see how to import different files in the R Programming Language.

Import CSV file into R

Method 1: Using read.csv() methods.

Here we will import csv file using the read.csv() method in R.

Syntax: read.csv(path, header = TRUE, sep = “,”)

Arguments : 

• path : The path of the file to be imported
• header : By default : TRUE . Indicator of whether to import column headings.
• sep = “,”  : The separator for the values in each row.

Output:

 ID Name Post Age 
1 5 H CA 67 
2 6 K SDE 39 
3 7 Z Admin 28

Method 2: Using read.table() methods

Here we will use read.table() methods to import CSV files into R Programming Language.

Output:

 Col1.Col2.Col3
1 100, a1, b1
2 200, a2, b2
3 300, a3, b3

Importing Data from a Text File

We can easily import or read .txt file using basic R function read.table(). read.table() is used to read a file in table format. This function is easy to use and flexible. 

Syntax:

# read data stored in .txt file

x<-read.table("file_name.txt", header=TRUE/FALSE)

Output:

 V1 V2 V3
1 100 a1 b1
2 200 a2 b2
3 300 a3 b3

If the header argument is set at TRUE, which reads the column names if they exist in the file.

Importing Data from a delimited file

R has a functionread.delim() to read the delimited files into the list. The file is by default separated by a tab which is represented by sep="", that separated can be a comma(, ), dollar symbol($), etc. 

Syntax:  read.delim("file_name.txt", sep="", header=TRUE)

Output:

X.V1.V2.V3
1 1, 100, a1, b1
2 2, 200, a2, b2
3 3, 300, a3, b3
[1] "list

Importing Json file in R

Here we are going to use rjson package to import the JSON file into R Programming Language.

Output:

$ID
[1] "1" "2" "3" "4" "5"
$Name
[1] "Mithuna" "Tanushree" "Parnasha" "Arjun" "Pankaj"
$Salary
[1] "722.5" "815.2" "1611" "2829" "843.25"

Importing XML files in R

To import XML files here we are going to use XML Package in R Programming language.

XML file for demonstration:

Reading XML file:

It can be read after installing the package and then parsing it with xmlparse() function.

Output:

1
Alia
620
IT
2
Brijesh
440
Commerce
3
Yash
600
Humanities
4
Mallika
660
IT
5
Zayn
560
IT

Importing SPSS sav File into R

Here we are going to read SPSS .sav File in the R programming language. For this, we will use the haven package. To read SPSS files in R we use the read_sav() function which is inside the haven package.

Syntax: read_sav(“FileName.sav”)

Output: