importGridstatInternal: Parser for Gridstat data files.

View source: R/import.r

importGridstatInternalR Documentation

Parser for Gridstat data files.

Description

Parse the file format that is used by the latest version of grid program gridstat (Bell, 1998).

Usage

importGridstatInternal(file, dir = NULL, min = NULL, max = NULL)

Arguments

file

filename including path if file is not in current working directory. File can also be a complete URL. The fileformat is .dat.

dir

alternative way to supply the directory where the file is located (default NULL).

min

optional argument (numeric, default NULL) for minimum rating value in grid.

max

optional argument (numeric, default NULL) for maximum rating value in grid.

Value

a list with imported parameters

Note

Note that the gridstat data format does not contain explicit information about the range of the rating scale (minimum and maximum). By default the range is inferred by scanning the ratings and picking the minimal and maximal values as rating range. You can set the minimal and maximal value by hand using the min and max arguments or by using the setScale() function. Note that if the rating range is not set, it may cause several functions to not work properly. A warning will be issued if the range is not set explicitly when using the importing function.

The function only reads data from the latest GridStat version. The latest version allows the separation of the left and right pole by using on of the following symbols /:- (hyphen, colon and dash). Older versions may not separate the left and right pole. This will cause all labels to be assigned to the left pole only when importing. You may fix this by simply entering one of the construct separator symbols into the GridStat file between each left and right construct pole.

The third line of a GridStat file may contain a no labels statement (i.e. a line containing any string of 'NOLA', 'NO L', 'NoLa', 'No L', 'Nola', 'No l', 'nola' or 'no l'). In this case only ratings are supplied, hence, default names are assigned to elements and constructs.

Email from Richard: The gridstat file has a fixed format with a title line, number of constructs and elements on second line. The third line can say No labels (actually it looks at the first 4 characters which can be any of 'NOLA','NO L', 'NoLa','No L','Nola','No l','nola','no l') in which case it skips to the data and creates dummy labels for elements and constructs, otherwise it reads the construct labels then the element labels, then the data. Construct labels were originally stored as one, hence it didn't matter what the separator between left and right pole labels was, but in the latest version where constructs can be reversed, it looks for a fixed separator - one of slash(/), dash(-), or colon(:). Some of my old data files might not conform.

References

Bell, R. C. (1998) GRIDSTAT: A program for analyzing the data of a repertory grid. Melbourne: Author.

Examples

## Not run: 

# supposing that the data file gridstat.dat is in the current working directory
file <- "gridstat.dat"
imp <- importGridstatInternal(file)

# specifying a directory (example)
dir <- "/Users/markheckmann/data"
imp <- importGridstatInternal(file, dir)

# using a full path (example)
imp <- importGridstatInternal("/Users/markheckmann/data/gridstat.dat")

# setting rating scale range
imp <- importGridstatInternal(file, dir, min=1, max=6)

## End(Not run)


OpenRepGrid documentation built on May 31, 2023, 5:33 p.m.