R: Data Sets

data {base} | R Documentation

## Data Sets

### Description

Loads specified data sets, or list the available data sets.

### Usage

    data(..., list = character(0), package = .packages(),
         lib.loc = NULL, verbose = getOption("verbose"))

### Arguments

`...` | a sequence of names or character strings.
`list` | a character vector.
`package` | a name or character vector giving the packages to look into for data sets. By default, all packages in the search path are used, then the ``data`' directory (if present) of the current working directory.
`lib.loc` | a character vector of directory names of R libraries, or `NULL`. The default value of `NULL` corresponds to all libraries currently known. If the default is used, the loaded packages are searched before the libraries.
`verbose` | a logical. If `TRUE`, additional diagnostics are printed.

### Details

Currently, four formats of data files are supported:

1. files ending ``.RData`' or ``.rda`' are `load()`ed.
2. files ending ``.R`' or ``.r`' are `source()`d in, with the R working directory changed temporarily to the directory containing the respective file.
3. files ending ``.tab`' or ``.txt`' are read using `read.table(..., header = TRUE)`, and hence result in a data frame.
4. files ending ``.csv`' are read using `read.table(..., header = TRUE, sep = ";")`, and also result in a data frame.

The data sets to be loaded can be specified as a sequence of names or character strings, or as the character vector `list`, or as both.

If no data sets are specified, `data` lists the available data sets. It looks for a file ``00Index`' in a ``data`' directory of each specified package, and uses these files to prepare a listing. If there is a ``data`' area but no index a warning is given: such packages are incomplete. The information about available data sets is returned in an object of class `"packageIQR"`. The structure of this class is experimental. In earlier versions of R, an empty character vector was returned along with listing available data sets.

If `lib.loc` is not specified, the datasets are searched for amongst those packages already loaded, followed by the ``data`' directory (if any) of the current working directory and then packages in the specified libraries. If `lib.loc` is specified, packages are searched for in the specified libraries, even if they are already loaded from another library.

To just look in the ``data`' directory of the current working directory, set `package = NULL`.

### Value

a character vector of all data sets specified, or information about all available data sets in an object of class `"packageIQR"` if none were specified.

### Note

The data files can be many small files. On some file systems it is desirable to save space, and the files in the ``data`' directory of an installed package can be zipped up as a zip archive ``Rdata.zip`'. You will need to provide a single-column file ``filelist`' of file names in that directory.

One can take advantage of the search order and the fact that a ``.R`' file will change directory. If raw data are stored in ``mydata.txt`' then one can set up ``mydata.R`' to read ``mydata.txt`' and pre-process it, e.g. using `transform`. For instance one can convert numeric vectors to factors with the appropriate labels. Thus, the ``.R`' file can effectively contain a metadata specification for the plaintext formats.

### See Also

`help` for obtaining documentation on data sets.

### Examples

    data()                      # list all available data sets
    data(package = base)        # list the data sets in the base package
    data(USArrests, "VADeaths") # load the data sets `USArrests' and `VADeaths'
    help(USArrests)             # give information on data set `USArrests'

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