If you do not have a grid program at hand you can define a grid using a standard text editor and by saving it as a
.txt file. The .txt file has to be in a fixed format. There are three mandatory blocks each starting and ending
with a predefined tag in uppercase letters. The first block starts with ELEMENTS and ends with END ELEMENTS and
contains one element in each line. The other mandatory blocks contain the constructs and ratings (see below). In the
block containing the constructs the left and right pole are separated by a colon (:). To define missing values use
NA like in the example below. One optional block contains the range of the rating scale used defined by two
numbers. The order of the blocks is arbitrary. All text not contained within the blocks is discarded and can thus be
used for comments.
Arguments
- file
A vector of filenames including the full path if file is not in current working directory. File can also be a complete URL. The file suffix has to be
.txt.- dir
Alternative way to supply the directory where the file is located (default
NULL).- min
Optional argument (
numeric, defaultNULL) for minimum rating value in grid.- max
Optional argument (
numeric, defaultNULL) for maximum rating value in grid.
Value
A single repgrid object in case one file and
a list of repgrid objects in case multiple files are imported.
Details
---------------- .txt file ----------------- |
anything not contained within the tags will be discarded |
ELEMENTS |
element 1 |
element 2 |
element 3 |
END ELEMENTS |
CONSTRUCTS |
left pole 1 : right pole 1 |
left pole 2 : right pole 2 |
left pole 3 : right pole 3 |
left pole 4 : right pole 4 |
END CONSTRUCTS |
RATINGS |
1 3 2 |
4 1 1 |
1 4 4 |
3 1 1 |
END RATINGS |
RANGE |
1 4 |
END RANGE |
---------------- end of file ---------------- |
Note that the maximum and minimum value has to be defined using the min and max arguments if no RANGE block is
contained in the data file. Otherwise the scaling range is inferred from the available data and a warning is issued
as the range may be erroneous. This may effect other functions that depend on knowing the correct range and it is
thus strongly recommended to set the scale range correctly.
See also
importGridcor(), importGridstat(), importScivesco(), importGridsuite(), importTxt(),
importExcel()
Examples
if (FALSE) {
# supposing that the data file sample.txt is in the current directory
file <- "sample.txt"
rg <- importTxt(file)
# specifying a directory (arbitrary example directory)
dir <- "/Users/markheckmann/data"
rg <- importTxt(file, dir)
# using a full path
rg <- importTxt("/Users/markheckmann/data/sample.txt")
# importing more than one .txt file via R code
files <- c("sample.txt", "sample_2.txt")
rg <- importTxt(files)
}