Data Import in R

Introduction

R can import data from various sources including CSV, Excel, databases, and statistical files.

Importing CSV

# Base R
read.csv("data.csv")
read.csv("data.csv", header = TRUE, sep = ",")

# Readr (tidyverse)
library(readr)
read_csv("data.csv")
read_delim("data.txt", delim = "\t")

Importing Excel

library(readxl)

# Read Excel files
read_excel("data.xlsx")
read_excel("data.xlsx", sheet = 2)
read_xlsx("data.xlsx")

# Get sheet names
excel_sheets("data.xlsx")

Importing from Databases

library(DBI)
library(RMySQL)

# Connect to MySQL
con <- dbConnect(MySQL(), 
                 host = "localhost",
                 user = "root",
                 password = "password",
                 dbname = "database")

# Query data
df <- dbReadTable(con, "table_name")
df <- dbGetQuery(con, "SELECT * FROM table")

# Disconnect
dbDisconnect(con)

Importing Other Formats

# RDS files
saveRDS(df, "data.rds")
df <- readRDS("data.rds")

# RData files
save(df, file = "data.RData")
load("data.RData")

# JSON
library(jsonlite)
fromJSON("data.json")

# XML
library(xml2)
read_xml("data.xml")

Summary

R provides versatile data import capabilities. Choose the appropriate method for your data source.