File Input/Output

When coding in R, you will often need to input datasets to work with! The easiest ways to do so are either from a .csv file or a .txt file. To do this, you can use the read.csv() and read_table() functions, respectively. The following demonstrates these functions using a hypothetical "hospital_data" dataset.

To output a file from R, use the syntax sink("FileName.FileType").

File Input:

#If the dataset is already loaded into the R directory
read.csv("hospital_data.csv")
read_table("hospital_data.txt")

#To add a new dataset from machine downloads to directory (Mac)
read.csv("/users/username/Downloads/hospital_data.csv")
read_table("/users/username/Downloads/hospital_data.txt")

#To add a new dataset from machine desktop to directory (Windows)
read.csv("C:\\Users\\username\\Desktop\\hospital_data.csv")
read_table("C:\\Users\\username\\Desktop\\hospital_data.txt")

#Note that forward slashes are used on Mac and backwards slashes are used by Windows

File Output:

#To output a file as a .txt file:
sink("hospital_data.txt")

#To output a file as a .csv file:
sink("hospital_data.csv")

Resources:

• R Documentation: read.csv file input

  • More read.csv resources here
• R Documentation: read_table file input
• R Documentation: File output