The col_names argument
Apart from path and sheet, there are several other arguments you can specify in read_excel(). One of these arguments is called col_names.
By default it is TRUE, denoting whether the first row in the Excel sheets contains the column names. If this is not the case, you can set col_names to FALSE. In this case, R will choose column names for you. You can also choose to set col_names to a character vector with names for each column. It works exactly the same as in the readr package.
You'll be working with the urbanpop_nonames.xlsx (view) file. It contains the same data as urbanpop.xlsx (view) but has no column names in the first row of the excel sheets.
This is a part of the course
“Introduction to Importing Data in R”
Exercise instructions
- Import the first Excel sheet of
"urbanpop_nonames.xlsx"and store the result inpop_a. Have R set the column names of the resulting data frame itself. - Import the first Excel sheet of
urbanpop_nonames.xlsx; this time, use thecolsvector that has already been prepared for you to specify the column names. Store the resulting data frame inpop_b. - Print out the summary of
pop_a. - Print out the summary of
pop_b. Can you spot the difference with the other summary?
Hands-on interactive exercise
Have a go at this exercise by completing this sample code.
# Import the first Excel sheet of urbanpop_nonames.xlsx (R gives names): pop_a
pop_a <- read_excel("____", col_names = ____)
# Import the first Excel sheet of urbanpop_nonames.xlsx (specify col_names): pop_b
cols <- c("country", paste0("year_", 1960:1966))
pop_b <- ___
# Print the summary of pop_a
___
# Print the summary of pop_b
___