Here, we provide summary of packages and functions to read and write files or import and export data in R.

1 Packages and Functions for Reading or Importing Files in R

We will first show summary for reading or importing data from CSV, TXT, Excel files, and file formats from common statistical packages such as R, SPSS, SAS, and STATA.

Note that it is important to set the working directory to the folder where you have saved the file(s) you want to read, or get the working directory of your R session and save the file(s) there. Alternatively, you can specify the full path of the file(s) in the functions when reading them.

Below are the packages and functions for each file type.

Packages and Functions for Reading or Importing Files in R
File Type Package Function
*CSV or .csv *utils read.csv() or read.csv2()
*TXT or .txt *utils read.delim() or read.delim2()
XLSX or .xlsx readxl read_excel()
XLS or .xls readxl read_excel()
RData or .RData *base load()
RDS or .RDS *base readRDS()
SPSS or .sav haven read_sav()
SAS (.sas7bdat) sas7bdat read.sas7bdat()
SAS (.xpt) foreign read.xport()
STATA or .dta haven read_stata()

  • read.csv() is for data that uses a period as decimal point and a comma as field separator, while read.csv2() is for data that uses a comma as decimal point and a semicolon as field separator.

  • read.delim() is for data that uses a period as decimal point, while read.delim2() is for data that uses a comma as decimal point.

  • The "utils" and the "base" packages do not need to be installed.

2 Packages and Functions for Writing or Exporting Files in R

Next, we show summary for writing or exporting data to CSV, TXT, Excel files, and file formats from common statistical packages such as R, SPSS, SAS, and STATA.

Note that it is important to set the working directory to the folder where you want to store your written files, or get the working directory where they will be stored if you are not going to specify one. Alternatively, you can specify a full path for the file(s) in the functions when saving them.

Below are the packages and functions for each file type.

Packages and Functions for Writing or Exporting Files in R
File Type Package Function
*CSV or .csv *utils write.csv() or write.csv2()
TXT or .txt *utils write.table()
XLSX or .xlsx writexl write_xlsx()
RData or .RData *base save()
RDS or .RDS *base saveRDS()
SPSS or .sav haven write_sav()
SAS foreign write.foreign()
STATA or .dta haven write_dta()

  • write.csv() is for data that uses a period as decimal point and a comma as field separator, while write.csv2() is for data that uses a comma as decimal point and a semicolon as field separator.

  • The "utils" and the "base" packages do not need to be installed.

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