convert function

Convert from one file format to another

This function constructs a data frame from a data file using import() and uses export() to write the data to disk in the format indicated by the file extension.

convert(in_file, out_file, in_opts = list(), out_opts = list())

Arguments

• in_file: A character string naming an input file.
• out_file: A character string naming an output file.
• in_opts: A named list of options to be passed to import().
• out_opts: A named list of options to be passed to export().

Returns

A character string containing the name of the output file (invisibly).

Examples

## For demo, a temp. file path is created with the file extension .dta (Stata)
dta_file <- tempfile(fileext = ".dta")
## .csv
csv_file <- tempfile(fileext = ".csv")
## .xlsx
xlsx_file <- tempfile(fileext = ".xlsx")

## Create a Stata data file
export(mtcars, dta_file)

## convert Stata to CSV and open converted file
convert(dta_file, csv_file)
import(csv_file)

## correct an erroneous file format
export(mtcars, xlsx_file, format = "tsv") ## DON'T DO THIS
## import(xlsx_file) ## ERROR
## convert the file by specifying `in_opts`
convert(xlsx_file, xlsx_file, in_opts = list(format = "tsv"))
import(xlsx_file)

## convert from the command line:
## Rscript -e "rio::convert('mtcars.dta', 'mtcars.csv')"

See Also

Luca Braglia has created a Shiny app called rioweb that provides access to the file conversion features of rio through a web browser.