'Incomplete final line' warning when trying to read a .csv file into R

Question

I'm trying to read a .csv file into R and upon using this formula:

pheasant<-read.table(file.choose(),header=TRUE,sep=",")

I get this warning message:

"incomplete final line found by readTableHeader on 'C:\Documents and Settings..."

There are a couple of things I thought may have caused this warning, but unfortunately I don't know enough about R to diagnose the problem myself so I thought I'd post here in the hope someone else can diagnose it for me!

• the .csv file was originally an Excel file, which I saved into .csv format
• the file comprises three columns of data
• each data column is of a differing length, i.e. there are a different number of values in each column
• I want to compare the means (using t-test or equivalent depending on normal / not normal distribution) of two of the columns at a time, so for example, t-test between column 1 values and column 2 values, then a t-test of column 1 and column 3 values, etc.

Any help or suggestions would be seriously appreciated!

Answer 1

The message indicates that the last line of the file doesn't end with an End Of Line (EOL) character (linefeed (\n) or carriage return+linefeed (\r\n)). The original intention of this message was to warn you that the file may be incomplete; most datafiles have an EOL character as the very last character in the file.

The remedy is simple:

1. Open the file
2. Navigate to the very last line of the file
3. Place the cursor the end of that line
4. Press return
5. Save the file