Import flat files from the web
In the video, you saw that the utils
functions to import flat file data, such as read.csv()
and read.delim()
, are capable of automatically importing from URLs that point to flat files on the web.
You must be wondering whether Hadley Wickham's alternative package, readr
, is equally potent. Well, figure it out in this exercise! The URLs for both a .csv
file as well as a .delim
file are already coded for you. It's up to you to actually import the data. If it works, that is…
This exercise is part of the course
Intermediate Importing Data in R
Exercise instructions
- Load the
readr
package. It's already installed on DataCamp's servers. - Use
url_csv
to read in the.csv
file it is pointing to. Use theread_csv()
function. The.csv
contains column names in the first row. Save the resulting data frame aspools
. - Similarly, use
url_delim
to read in the online.txt
file. Use theread_tsv()
function and store the result aspotatoes
. - Print
pools
andpotatoes
. Looks correct?
Hands-on interactive exercise
Have a go at this exercise by completing this sample code.
# Load the readr package
# Import the csv file: pools
url_csv <- "http://assets.datacamp.com/production/course_1478/datasets/swimming_pools.csv"
# Import the txt file: potatoes
url_delim <- "http://assets.datacamp.com/production/course_1478/datasets/potatoes.txt"
# Print pools and potatoes