\HeaderA{read.DIF}{Data Input from Spreadsheet}{read.DIF}
\keyword{file}{read.DIF}
\keyword{connection}{read.DIF}
\begin{Description}\relax
Reads a file in Data Interchange Format (DIF) and creates a data frame
from it.  DIF is a format for data matrices such as single spreadsheets.
\end{Description}
\begin{Usage}
\begin{verbatim}
read.DIF(file, header = FALSE,
           dec = ".", row.names, col.names,
           as.is = !stringsAsFactors,
           na.strings = "NA", colClasses = NA, nrows = -1,
           skip = 0, check.names = TRUE,
           blank.lines.skip = TRUE,
           stringsAsFactors = default.stringsAsFactors(),
           transpose = FALSE)
\end{verbatim}
\end{Usage}
\begin{Arguments}
\begin{ldescription}
\item[\code{file}] the name of the file which the data are to be read from,
or a connection, or a complete URL.

\item[\code{header}] a logical value indicating whether the spreadsheet contains the
names of the variables as its first line.  If missing, the value is
determined from the file format: \code{header} is set to \code{TRUE}
if and only if the first row contains only character values and
the top left cell is empty.
\item[\code{dec}] the character used in the file for decimal points.
\item[\code{row.names}] a vector of row names.  This can be a vector giving
the actual row names, or a single number giving the column of the
table which contains the row names, or character string giving the
name of the table column containing the row names.

If there is a header and the first row contains one fewer field than
the number of columns, the first column in the input is used for the
row names.  Otherwise if \code{row.names} is missing, the rows are
numbered.

Using \code{row.names = NULL} forces row numbering.

\item[\code{col.names}] a vector of optional names for the variables.
The default is to use \code{"V"} followed by the column number.
\item[\code{as.is}] the default behavior of \code{read.DIF} is to convert
character variables (which are not converted to logical, numeric or
complex) to factors.  The variable \code{as.is} controls the
conversion of columns not otherwise specified by \code{colClasses}.
Its value is either a vector of logicals (values are recycled if
necessary), or a vector of numeric or character indices which
specify which columns should not be converted to factors.

Note: to suppress all conversions including those of numeric
columns, set \code{colClasses = "character"}.

Note that \code{as.is} is specified per column (not per
variable) and so includes the column of row names (if any) and any
columns to be skipped.

\item[\code{na.strings}] a character vector of strings which are to be
interpreted as \code{\LinkA{NA}{NA}} values.  Blank fields are also
considered to be missing values in logical, integer, numeric and
complex fields.
\item[\code{colClasses}] character.  A vector of classes to be assumed for
the columns.  Recycled as necessary, or if the character vector is
named, unspecified values are taken to be \code{NA}.

Possible values are \code{NA} (when \code{\LinkA{type.convert}{type.convert}} is
used), \code{"NULL"} (when the column is skipped), one of the atomic
vector classes (logical, integer, numeric, complex, character, raw),
or \code{"factor"}, \code{"Date"} or \code{"POSIXct"}.  Otherwise
there needs to be an \code{as} method (from package \pkg{methods})
for conversion from \code{"character"} to the specified formal
class.

Note that \code{colClasses} is specified per column (not per
variable) and so includes the column of row names (if any).

\item[\code{nrows}] the maximum number of rows to read in.  Negative values
are ignored.
\item[\code{skip}] the number of lines of the data file to skip before
beginning to read data.
\item[\code{check.names}] logical.  If \code{TRUE} then the names of the
variables in the data frame are checked to ensure that they are
syntactically valid variable names.  If necessary they are adjusted
(by \code{\LinkA{make.names}{make.names}}) so that they are, and also to ensure
that there are no duplicates.
\item[\code{blank.lines.skip}] logical: if \code{TRUE} blank lines in the
input are ignored.
\item[\code{stringsAsFactors}] logical: should character vectors be converted
to factors?
\item[\code{transpose}] logical, indicating if the row and column
interpretation should be transposed.  Microsoft's Excel has been
known to produce (non-standard conforming) DIF files which would
need \code{transpose = TRUE} to be read correctly.
\end{ldescription}
\end{Arguments}
\begin{Value}
A data frame (\code{\LinkA{data.frame}{data.frame}}) containing a representation of
the data in the file.  Empty input is an error unless \code{col.names}
is specified, when a 0-row data frame is returned: similarly giving
just a header line if \code{header = TRUE} results in a 0-row data frame.
\end{Value}
\begin{Note}\relax
The columns referred to in \code{as.is} and \code{colClasses} include
the column of row names (if any).

Less memory will be used if \code{colClasses} is specified as one of
the six atomic vector classes.
\end{Note}
\begin{Author}\relax
R Core; \code{transpose} option by
Christoph Buser, ETH Zurich
\end{Author}
\begin{References}\relax
The DIF format specification can be found by searching on
\url{http://www.wotsit.org/}; the optional header fields are ignored.
See also
\url{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Interchange_Format}.

The term is likely to lead to confusion: Windows will have a
\sQuote{Windows Data Interchange Format (DIF) data format} as part of
its WinFX system, which may or may not be compatible.
\end{References}
\begin{SeeAlso}\relax
The \emph{R Data Import/Export} manual.

\code{\LinkA{scan}{scan}}, \code{\LinkA{type.convert}{type.convert}},
\code{\LinkA{read.fwf}{read.fwf}} for reading \emph{f}ixed \emph{w}idth
\emph{f}ormatted input;
\code{\LinkA{read.table}{read.table}};
\code{\LinkA{data.frame}{data.frame}}.
\end{SeeAlso}

