Loading Excel files

Loading an Excel file is a multi-step process:

0. If the file is somewhere on the web, download the Excel file to your local computer.
1. Upload the Excel file from your local computer to your RStudio workspace.
2. Import the Excel file from the Rstudio workspace into your project workflow/document.

We will describe this “Import” step here.

• Locate the file in the Files pane.
• Click the file name and select “Import Dataset”. This will bring up the Import dialog window.
• Optionally change the “name” of the resulting object in the bottom left of the dialog.
• You may change which sheet you want to include, as well as how many lines to skip.
• You should see on the bottom right a few lines of code similar to the ones below. Copy those lines and place them where they should go.
  • The library(readxl) line is only needed once, even if you load multiple files, and should only appear once in your RMarkdown document if you have one.
  • If you are using RMarkdown, the View(...) line needs to instead go to the console, and it is used to offer a tabular visualization of the data.

library(readxl)
guns <- read_excel("~/Math217Labs/blank/guns.xlsx")
View(guns)
## Below lines showcase a graph, and are not part of "loading the data"
own_rate <- guns$own_rate
names(own_rate) <- guns$country
dotchart(sort(own_rate))