problem with specifying colClasses in read.csv in R

Question

I am trying to specify colClasses in read.csv in an attempt to speed up the reading of csv file. However, I encounter the following problem:

assuming that i have a f

Answer 1

Your second column is not numeric as it is quoted -- that makes it text.

So read it as text, then call as.numeric(...) on the column. Or alter the file.

Answer 2

Further to Dirk,

You can simply drop the colClasses argument and the file will read in fine.

data <- read.csv('t.csv' , stringsAsFactors=FALSE, check.names=FALSE , comment.char='')
str(data)

Gives:

> str(data)
'data.frame':   1 obs. of  2 variables:
 $ a: chr "x"
 $ b: int 0
> class(data$b)
[1] "integer"

You should be able to do everything you want with that second column now.

GL