R Language I/O for foreign tables (Excel, SAS, SPSS, Stata) Importing data with rio
Example
A very simple way to import data from many common file formats is with rio. This package provides a function import() that wraps many commonly used data import functions, thereby providing a standard interface. It works simply by passing a file name or URL to import():
import("example.csv") # comma-separated values
import("example.tsv") # tab-separated values
import("example.dta") # Stata
import("example.sav") # SPSS
import("example.sas7bdat") # SAS
import("example.xlsx") # Excel
import() can also read from compressed directories, URLs (HTTP or HTTPS), and the clipboard.
A comprehensive list of all supported file formats is available on the rio package github repository.
It is even possible to specify some further parameters related to the specific file format you are trying to read, passing them directly within the import() function:
import("example.csv", format = ",") #for csv file where comma is used as separator
import("example.csv", format = ";") #for csv file where semicolon is used as separator
