R – ‘Incomplete final line’ warning when trying to read a .csv file into R

line-endingsrread.csv

I'm trying to read a .csv file into R and upon using this formula:

pheasant<-read.table(file.choose(),header=TRUE,sep=",")

I get this warning message:

"incomplete final line found by readTableHeader on 'C:\Documents and Settings..."

There are a couple of things I thought may have caused this warning, but unfortunately I don't know enough about R to diagnose the problem myself so I thought I'd post here in the hope someone else can diagnose it for me!

  • the .csv file was originally an Excel file, which I saved into .csv format
  • the file comprises three columns of data
  • each data column is of a differing length, i.e. there are a different number of values in each column
  • I want to compare the means (using t-test or equivalent depending on normal / not normal distribution) of two of the columns at a time, so for example, t-test between column 1 values and column 2 values, then a t-test of column 1 and column 3 values, etc.

Any help or suggestions would be seriously appreciated!

Best Answer

The message indicates that the last line of the file doesn't end with an End Of Line (EOL) character (linefeed (\n) or carriage return+linefeed (\r\n)). The original intention of this message was to warn you that the file may be incomplete; most datafiles have an EOL character as the very last character in the file.

The remedy is simple:

  1. Open the file
  2. Navigate to the very last line of the file
  3. Place the cursor the end of that line
  4. Press return
  5. Save the file
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