read.gnumeric.sheet {gnumeric}R Documentation

Read data from a gnumeric (or MS Excel, Openoffice Calc, Xbase, Quatro Pro, Paradox, HTML, etc) spreadsheet or database file using ssconvert from the gnumeric distribution

Description

Read data from a sheet of a gnumeric (or other common spreadsheet or database) file to a data.frame.

Requires an external program, ssconvert (normally installed with gnumeric (http://projects.gnome.org/gnumeric/) in PATH.

Calls ssconvert to convert the input to CSV. ssconvert can read several file formats (see Details below).

Note: During conversion to CSV ssconvert also evaluates formulas (e.g. =sum(A1:A3)) in cells, and emits the result instead of the formula.

Usage

  df<-read.gnumeric.sheet(file,
                          head=FALSE,
                          sheet.name='Sheet1',
                          top.left='A1',
                          bottom.right='IV65536',
                          drop.empty.rows="bottom", 
                          drop.empty.columns="right",
                          colnames.as.sheet=FALSE,
                          rownames.as.sheet=colnames.as.sheet,
                          quiet=TRUE,
                          LANG='C',
                          import.encoding=NA,
                          ...
                         )

Arguments

file Name of gnumeric file (or other file type readable by gnumeric) to read from.
This may also be an URL, i.e. like
'http://example.com/path/file.gnumeric'
head When TRUE, use first row of requested gnumeric sheet range as column names in the resulting data.frame
sheet.name Name of sheet as appears in gnumeric.
Sheet names containing space character do not work.
sheet.name=NA Omits sheet name from the ssconvert command line.
For gnumeric files this will read the sheet that was 'current' in gnumeric when the file was saved.
top.left Top left corner of requested gnumeric sheet range, e.g. 'A1'
bottom.right Bottom right corner of requested gnumeric sheet range.
The default for read.gnumeric.sheet is 'IV65536': this causes a lot of unused lines to be printed by ssconvert then parsed by read.csv, thus you might want to override it to speed up reading.
Use read.gnumeric.sheet.info to read actual bottom.right cell name from a gnumeric file (but not other formats).
drop.empty.rows One of c('none','top','bottom','both','all').
'all' drops all empty lines from the requested range, even those that are between two non-empty rows. 'both' drops empty lines below the last non-empty row and above the first non-empty. 'top', 'bottom' and 'none' as you would expect.
drop.empty.columns One of c('none','left','right','both','all')
Similar to drop.empty.rows, but for columns.
colnames.as.sheet Rename columns to 'A', 'B', 'C', ... to have names corresponding to gnumeric column names.
rownames.as.sheet Rename rows to '1', '2', '3', ... to have names corresponding to gnumeric row indices. Note: this means df['1',], not df[1,] in the result (rownames are strings, not integers). Note: when deciding row names only top.left and head are accounted for, but not e.g. skip (which may be passed to read.csv via ...).
quiet When TRUE, do not print command executed, and (on unix platforms) also redirect stderr of the external program ssconvert to /dev/null
LANG Under unix, passed to ssconvert in the environment variable 'LANG'. The default value ('C') is intended to avoid using decimal comma in the emitted CSV file.
import.encoding If not NA, passed to ssconvert as its --import-encoding parameter.
... Extra arguments, passed to read.csv

Details

Data from the gnumeric file is dumped as .csv using the ssconvert program provided with gnumeric.

ssconvert supports several input formats, thus the input file does not have to be a gnumeric file. The formats supported may be listed with

    ssconvert --list-importers
from a shell prompt.

For me this prints (with ssconvert version '1.8.4')

ID                           | Description
Gnumeric_xbase:xbase         | Xbase (*.dbf) file format
Gnumeric_Excel:excel         | MS Excel (tm) (*.xls)
Gnumeric_Excel:xlsx          | MS Excel (tm) 2007
Gnumeric_html:html           | HTML (*.html, *.htm)
Gnumeric_oleo:oleo           | GNU Oleo (*.oleo)
Gnumeric_applix:applix       | Applix (*.as)
Gnumeric_QPro:qpro           | Quattro Pro (*.wb1, *.wb2, *.wb3)
Gnumeric_paradox:paradox     | Paradox database or
                             | primary index file
Gnumeric_sc:sc               | SC/xspread
Gnumeric_XmlIO:sax           | Gnumeric XML (*.gnumeric)
Gnumeric_lotus:lotus         | Lotus 123 (*.wk1, *.wks, *.123)
Gnumeric_XmlIO:dom           | Gnumeric XML (*.gnumeric) Old
                             |   slow importer
Gnumeric_dif:dif             | Data Interchange Format (*.dif)
Gnumeric_Excel:excel_xml     | MS Excel (tm) 2003 SpreadsheetML
Gnumeric_OpenCalc:openoffice | Open/Star Calc (*.sxc, *.ods)
Gnumeric_plan_perfect:pln    | Plan Perfect Format (PLN) import
Gnumeric_sylk:sylk           | MultiPlan (SYLK)
Gnumeric_mps:mps             | Linear and integer program (*.mps)
                             |   file format
Gnumeric_stf:stf_csvtab      | Comma or tab separated
                             |   values (CSV/TSV)
Gnumeric_stf:stf_assistant   | Text import (configurable)

But the actual list may depend on which import plugins are installed for gnumeric.

Format Source Status
.gnumeric gnumeric works
.xls gnumeric works
.html gnumeric [Save as / HTML 4.0] works
.html Openoffice Calc [Save as/HTML Document] works
.ods Openoffice Calc might work[1]
Other formats not tested

[1] during .ods import ssconvert emits some messages on stdout (corrupts output). Worked around on unix with | grep , on the output. (The problem has been corrected in libgsf on 2009-08-20, thus the workaround is expected to be removable by 2010)

See Also

read.gnumeric.range for a variant with default arguments more suited for reading an exact cell range of a sheet.

read.gnumeric.sheet.info to read actual bottom.right cell name from a gnumeric file (but not other formats).

read.gnumeric.sheets to read all sheets from a gnumeric file (but not other formats).

read.xls for reading Microsoft Excel files (possibly from a http:// URL)

read.DIF for reading Data Interchange Format (DIF) files.

read.dbf for Xbase (.dbf) files.

Examples

## Read all data from 'Sheet1'
## Not run: 
df <- read.gnumeric.sheet( file="file.gnumeric" );

df <- read.gnumeric.sheet( file="file.gnumeric",
                           sheet.name='Sheet1' );


## Read from Excel sheet named 'Sheet3' the range C3:D50,
## rename columns to 'C' and 'D', rows to '3' ... '50',
## then drop all empty rows.
## 
df<-read.gnumeric.sheet( "file.xls",
                          sheet.name='Sheet3',
                          top.left='C3',
                          bottom.right='D50',
                          drop.empty.rows="all", 
                          drop.empty.columns="none",
                          colnames.as.sheet=TRUE
                         )

## Read from "file.gnumeric", 'Sheet1' data in 'A1:E100',
## Use first row (of selected range) as column names.
## Drop empty rows and columns from bottom and right.
df<-read.gnumeric.sheet("file.gnumeric", head=TRUE,
                         bottom.right='E100')

## Why does it not work? Set quiet=FALSE to see
## the command executed (and on unix, diagnostic
## messages from ssconvert).
df<-read.gnumeric.sheet( "file.ods", quiet=FALSE )
## End(Not run)


[Package gnumeric version 0.5-3 Index]