csvReadM

Purpose

Reads data from CSV file into a GAUSS matrix.

Format

mat = csvReadM(file[, row_range[, col_range[, delimiter[, quote_char]]]])
Parameters:
  • file (string) – name of CSV file.

  • row_range (scalar or 2x1 matrix) – Optional input. The first element of row_range will specify the first row of the file to read. If there is a second element in row_range, it will specify the last row to read from the file. If there is no second element in row_range, GAUSS will read to the end of the file. If row_range is not passed in, all rows will be read from the file. Default = 1.

  • col_range (scalar or 2x1 matrix) – Optional input. The first element of col_range will specify the first column of the file to read. If there is a second element in col_range, it will specify the last column to read from the file. If there is no second element in col_range, GAUSS will read to the end of the file. If col_range is not passed in, all columns will be read from the file. Default = 1.

  • delimiter (string) –

    Optional input. The character used to separate elements in the file. Examples include:

    • space " "

    • tab "\t"

    • semi-colon ";"

    • comma "," (Default)

  • quote_char (string) – Optional input. The character used to indicate a quoted field.

Returns:

mat (matrix) – data read from the CSV file.

Examples

Basic Example

Read all contents from the file housing.csv located in your GAUSS examples directory.

// Get file name with full path
file = getGAUSSHome("examples/housing.csv");

// Read entire contents of 'housing.csv'
housing = csvReadM(file);

// Print the first 5 rows of all columns
print housing[1:5, .];

The code above will produce the following output. Notice that the first row contains all missing values. This is because the first row of the file housing.csv contains a header. csvReadM() reads in textual data as missing values by default. You can easily remove any rows that contain all missing values with the function packr() (which stands for “pack rows”).

      .          .          .          .          .          .
3104.00       4.00       2.00       0.00     279.90    2048.00
1173.00       2.00       1.00       0.00     146.50     912.00
3076.00       4.00       2.00       0.00     237.70    1654.00
1608.00       3.00       2.00       0.00     200.00    2068.00

Skip the header

In the previous example, we read the header in as numeric data and got missing values. In this example, we will skip the first row to avoid reading the header as numeric data.

// Create file name with full path
file = getGAUSSHome("examples/housing.csv");

/*
** Row range will be from line 2 to the end of the file
** since no end to the range is specified.
*/
row_range = 2;

// Load the data from row 2 to the end of the file into 'housing'
housing = csvReadM(file, row_range);

// Print the first 5 rows of all columns
print housing[1:5, .];

After the code above, housing should equal:

3104.00       4.00       2.00       0.00     279.90    2048.00
1173.00       2.00       1.00       0.00     146.50     912.00
3076.00       4.00       2.00       0.00     237.70    1654.00
1608.00       3.00       2.00       0.00     200.00    2068.00
1454.00       3.00       3.00       0.00     159.90    1477.00

Read from a row range

// Create file name with full path
file = getGAUSSHome("examples/housing.csv");

// Row range will be from line 3 to line 5
row_range = { 3, 5 };

// Load the data from rows 3 to 5 of the file into 'housing'
housing = csvReadM(file, row_range);

// Print the entire contents of the variable 'housing'
print housing;

After the code above, housing should equal:

1173.00       2.00       1.00       0.00     146.50     912.00
3076.00       4.00       2.00       0.00     237.70    1654.00
1608.00       3.00       2.00       0.00     200.00    2068.00

Read all rows of a range of columns

// Create file name with full path
file = getGAUSSHome("examples/housing.csv");

// Row range from the first line to the end of the file
row_range = 1;

// Read only columns 2 through 4
col_range = { 2, 4 };

// Load the data from columns 2 through 4 into 'x'
x = csvReadM(file, row_range, col_range);

Read all rows of one specific column

// Create file name with full path
file = getGAUSSHome("examples/housing.csv");

// Row range from the first line to the end of the file
row_range = 1;

// Read only the 3rd column
col_range = { 3, 3 };

// Load the data from the 3rd column into 'x'
x = csvReadM(file, row_range, col_range);

Read all rows and all cols, with specified delimiter

Enter 1 for the row_range and col_range if you want to read all contents of a file, but need to specify the field delimiter.

x = csvReadM("myfile.csv", 1, 1, ";");

Specify full path to file

Windows

x = csvReadM("C:\\mydata\\myfile.csv");

Note

Notice that double backslashes are needed inside of a string on Windows

macOS

x = csvReadM("/Users/MyUserName/myfile.csv");

Linux

x = csvReadM("/home/my_user/myfile.csv");

Remarks

The standard input stream (stdin) can be read with csvReadM() by passing in __STDIN as the filename input. Note that __STDIN should not be passed as a string, surrounded by quotes. Correct usage is shown below:

x = csvReadM(__STDIN);