ezpickr
Easy Data Import Using GUI File Picker and Seamless Communication Between an Excel and R
Choosing any rectangular data file using interactive GUI dialog box, and seamlessly manipulating tidy data between an 'Excel' window and R session.
The goal of ezpickr is to provide R beginners with a convenient way to
pick up their data files and to easily import it as a tidy tibble form
into an R environment using GUI file-picker dialogue box (through
ezpickr::pick()), and to provide R users with a convenient way to open
and manipulate their data objects using Excel application for a seamless
data communication between an Excel window and R session through
ezpickr::viewxl()).
You can alternatively use ezpickr::pick() function for choosing *.csv,
*.csv2, *.tsv, *.txt, *.xls, *.xlsx, *.json, *.html, *.htm, *.php,
*.pdf, *.doc, *.docx, *.rtf, *.RData, *.Rda, *.RDS, *.sav (SPSS), *.por,
*.sas7bdat, *.sas7bcat, *.dta, *.xpt, and *.mbox files in an interactive
GUI mode A file choose dialog box will be prompted.
Any additional arguments available for each file type and extension:
readr::read_csv() for CSV (Comma-Separated Values) files;
readr::read_csv2() for CSV2 (Semicolon-Separated Values) files;
readr::read_tsv() for ‘TSV’ (Tab-Separated Values) files;
readr::read_file() for ‘txt’ (plain text) files;
readxl::read_excel() for ‘Excel’ files; haven::read_spss() for
‘SPSS’ files; haven::read_stata() for ‘Stata’ files;
haven::read_sas() for ‘SAS’ files; textreadr::read_document() for
‘Microsoft Word’, ‘PDF’, ‘RTF’, ‘HTML’, ‘HTM’, and ‘PHP’ files;
jsonlite::fromJSON() for ‘JSON’ files; mboxr::read_mbox() for ‘mbox’
files; base::readRDS() for ‘RDS’ files; base::load() for ‘RDA’ and
‘RDATA’ files.
Each corresponding function depending upon a file extension will be automatically matched and applied once you pick up your file using either the GUI-file-chooser dialog box or explicit path/to/filename.
Installation
Development Version
You can install the latest development version as follows:
if(!require(devtools)) {install.packages("devtools")}devtools::install_github('jooyoungseo/ezpickr')
Stable Version
You can install the released version of ezpickr from CRAN with:
install.packages("ezpickr")
Example
Usage of the pick() Function
This is a basic example which shows you how to import data files:
library(ezpickr)# Choosing file and saving it into a variable## Scenario 1: Picking up a file using interactive GUI dialog box:data <- pick() ## Please use `picko()` instead if your path/file contains any Korean characters.## Scenario 2: Picking up a file using an explicit file name ("test.sav" in the example below; however, you can feed other files through this function such as *.SAS, *.DTA, *.csv, *.csv2, *.tsv, *.xlsx, *.txt, *.html, webpage URL, *.json, *.Rda, *.Rdata, and more):data <- pick("test.sav") ## Please use `picko("test.sav")` instead if your path/file contains any Korean characters.# Now you can use the imported file as a tibble data frame.str(data)
Usage of the viewxl() Function
You can open any data.frame, tibble, matrix, table or vector from an R session into your default-set spreadsheet application window as follows:
library(ezpickr)data(airquality)str(airquality)# Use `viewxl()` function to open your data object in your spreadsheet:viewxl(airquality)# Then, when necessary, you can modify the opened data in the spreadsheet and save it as a new data.# You can pass a list object to the `viewxl()` function like below:l <- list(iris = iris, mtcars = mtcars, chickwts = chickwts, quakes = quakes)viewxl(l)# Then, each list item will appear in your Excel window sheet by sheet.
News
ezpickr 1.0.5
pick()andpicko()functions now allow users to specify value-separator parameter usingdelimoption for*.csv,*.csv2, and*.tsvfiles when the expected delimitters are not used. For example, in any event your csv file is separating each value using whitespace instead of comma(,) do the following:
data <- pick(delim=" ")
ezpickr 1.0.4
- "xpt" file format is now supported in
pick()function. - Atomic class (vector) is now supported in
viewxl()function.
ezpickr 1.0.3
- A critical bug that users cannot use the additional arguments of
readxl::read_excel()for an Excel format within bothpick()andpicko()functions has been resolved; by default an Excel file with multiple sheets is returned as a list object when users have not passed any additional arguments.
ezpickr 1.0.2
purrrpackage has been added to the import package list to efficiently return multiple Excel sheets as a list of tibble; this way offers a better performance than the previouslapply()mechanism.- Users can now access a multi-sheet Excel file with each sheet name as well as its index number when using
pick()andpicko()functions. - A bug that users cannot utilize explicit Korean path/file when
modeoption is specified inpick()function has been resolved; Korean users now can use explicit Korean-included path/file inpicko()function as well. view()function is now deprecated to avoid any collision withtibble::view()function which has the same name; users is recommended to useviewxl()function in the future instead.view()andviewxl()functions now return a tibble object reflecting users' real-time manipulation done in Excel.view()andviewxl()functions have been fixed to process multiple sheets as a list object.mboxfile format is now supported in bothpick()andpicko()functions usingmboxr::read_mbox()function under the hood.
ezpickr 1.0.1
- New function
picko()has been added to assist Korean R users in importing Korean-includedpath/to/fileas an alternative ofpick()function; other non-Korean R users can still employ the existingpick()function. - A more robust mechanism has been applied to a file path that contains any Korean characters.
pick()andpicko()functions now automatically return an Excel file that contains more than one sheet as a list of each Work Sheet (Thanks hyun seung Lee for the suggestion via email).view()function now internally employswritexl::write_xlsx()function instead ofreadr::write_csv()to create Microsoft Excel file to provide users with a stable encoding consistency; since this change,modeoption of theview()function has been removed.tableclass is now supported inview()function by automatically converting it into data.frame class.- Startup message has been added to the package so that Korean R users can benefit from the newly developed
picko()function when interacting with Korean-included dataset.
ezpickr 1.0.0
modeargument has been added topick()function to accommodate Korean R users' needs in terms of R session locale and encoding to Korean. Available values include "ko1" for "CP949" and "ko2" for "UTF-8" while both change R locale into Korean.view()function has been newly added to provide R beginners with a convenient way to place their data in a spread sheet application.
ezpickr 0.1.3
- Unused dependencies are moved to "suggest" from "import" field in the description file not to force unnecessary installation for users.
interactive()condition is added to thepick()example to avoid any error when called in a non-interactive testing environment.
ezpickr 0.1.2
- NEWS file is added to help HTML page.
- Authorship fixed for Soyoung Choi from contributor to author role for her considerable help for the
pick()function.
ezpickr 0.1.1
- Providing a sample test file
airquality.savfor an example purpose. - Now
pick()function returns a JSON file into a tibble form. - Returning a tibble form for RDA, RData, and RDS as well when
pick()function is applied.
ezpickr 0.1.0
- Added a
NEWS.mdfile to track changes to the package. - Initial release.