rio Extensions
Writing Import/Export Extensions for rio
.import(file, ...) ## Default S3 method: .import(file, ...) .export(file, x, ...) ## Default S3 method: .export(file, x, ...)
file |
A character string naming a file. |
... |
Additional arguments passed to methods. |
x |
A data frame or matrix to be written into a file. |
rio implements format-specific S3 methods for each type of file that can be imported from or exported to. This happens via internal S3 generics, .import
and .export
. It is possible to write new methods like with any S3 generic (e.g., print
).
As an example, .import.rio_csv
imports from a comma-separated values file. If you want to produce a method for a new filetype with extension “myfile”, you simply have to create a function called .import.rio_myfile
that implements a format-specific importing routine and returns a data.frame. rio will automatically recognize new S3 methods, so that you can then import your file using: import("file.myfile")
.
As general guidance, if an import method creates many attributes, these attributes should be stored — to the extent possible — in variable-level attributes fields. These can be “gathered” to the data.frame level by the user via gather_attrs
.
For .import
, an R data.frame. For .export
, file
, invisibly.
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