10-reading-in-data2.Rmd

# Reading in data, revisited

R can read data from text files (this includes csv, tsv, txt, etc.) as well as from other statistical software like Excel, SAS, Stata etc.

## Rectangular data

For reading in rectangular text data, `readr` is your best bet. For a csv, your code would look like:

```{r eval = FALSE}
data <- read_csv(...)
```


## Data from other statistical software

The `haven` package is best for reading in data from SAS, Stata, and SPSS. The `readxl` package works for all excel files, including options for sheets and things like that.

## GIS data

Packages like `sf` and `raster` work for importing/writing vector and raster data, respectively.

## Writing data

As well as reading in a variety of different data formats, R can also write to these formats. 

## Cleaning data 

Along with wrangling, there are a few packages that help with the data reading process. [janitor](https://github.com/sfirke/janitor) is one of my favorites. I like the `clean_names()` function a lot because it will automatically make your column names easily machine readable (no spaces, special characters, etc).