read_transactions function

Read Transaction Data from a File (Fast)

read_transactions reads transaction data from a file fast, providing a significant speed increase over alternative methods for larger files.

read_transactions(filename, sep = " ", format = "list")

Arguments

• filename: A filename.
• sep: The separator between items (default " ").
• format: The output format ("list" or "transactions").

Returns

The transaction data, in the form of a list (of transactions, each list element being a vector of character values representing item labels), or an object of class transactions (arules).

Details

read_transactions uses (internally) the readChar

function to read transaction data from a file fast. This is substantially faster for larger files than alternative methods.

Files should be in the format of a list of transactions, one line per transaction, each transaction (ie, line) being a sequence of item labels, separated by the character specified by the parameter sep (default " "). See, for example, the files at http://fimi.ua.ac.be/data/.

Examples

## Not run:

trans <- read_transactions("mushroom.dat")
trans <- read_transactions("mushroom.dat", format = "transactions")
## End(Not run)