read.acs: Reads a comma-delimited file from the American Community...
In acs: Download, Manipulate, and Present American Community Survey and Decennial Data from the US Census
Description
Usage
Arguments
Details
Value
Author(s)
Description
When passed a comma-delimited file from the U.S. Census American Community
Survey (typically downloaded via the FactFinder website and unzipped),
read.acs returns an acs object with estimates, standard errors, and
associated metadata.
Most users will prefer to start with acs.fetch to import
data; read.acs is maintained as a "legacy" function, primarily
for use in situations where data is not available via the Census API.
Usage
1
2
Arguments
filename
the name of the .csv, .zip, or .txt file to be input
endyear
an integer (or "auto") indicating the latest year of the
data in the survey (e.g., for data from the 2005-2009 5-year ACS data,
endyear would be 2009)
span
an integer (should be 1, 3, or 5), or "auto" to have
read.acs guess the span from the filename (e.g., for data from the
2005-2009 5-year ACS data, span would be 5)
col.names
a vector of column names to be used as
acs.colnames for the object; defaults to "auto", which will
result in auto-generated names from the headers lines of the input file
acs.units
a vector of factors indicating what sort of data is
contained within each column of data ("count","dollars","proportion",
"ratio", "other")
geocols
a vector of integers indicating which columns contain
the geographic header information; defaults to "auto", which is the same
as 3:1, which seems to be the standard for FactFinder-2 downloads
skip
an integer indicating how many rows to skip before
processing the csv file; defaults to "auto", which will try to guess
the proper value
Details
After executing a query on the U.S. Census American FactFinder site
(http://factfinder2.census.gov), users can download their
results as a zip file containing data in comma-delimited file format
(for example, "ACS_10_5YR_B19013_with_ann.csv"). read.acs
simplifies the creation of new acs objects from these files. The
function uses some rudimentary algorithms to guess intelligently about
values for metadata (such as endyear and geography),
based on current file-format used by the Census "AmericanFactFinder 2"
download site.
The specified filename can be an actual .csv file, or
can be the name of a .zip file downloaded from the FactFinder
site. If the latter, read.acs will extract the necessary data
and leave the compressed zipfile in place.
As a default, read.acs assumes the first three columns will
contain geographic header information, which seems to be the standard
for the new Census American Factfinder download site. Users can also
set different values for the geocols= to specify other columns
for this geographic information. The function will use the first of
these columns for geographic rownames to label estimates. (By
default, then, this would be the third column of the actual file,
since geocols=3:1. For files downloaded via the Census
"legacy" version of FactFinder prior to 2012, users will probably want
to specify geocols=4:1.
As for column names, by default read.acs will scan the file to
determine how many of the initial rows contain "header" information,
and will generate new acs.colnames by concatenating information
found in these rows. Note that this can result in very long
variable names, and users may want to modify the contents of
acs.colnames after creation.
Alternatively, users can inspect downloaded csv files prior to import
and specify the skip= option explicitly, as with
read.csv and other read.XXX functions (i.e., the value
of skip is equal to the number of rows prior to the last header row).
Regardless of whether skip= is set or "auto", however, the
column names will be created using all of the rows at the top of the
file, even the "skipped" ones.
Finally, these new acs.colnames are used to guess intelligently
about values for acs.units, but currently all this includes is
a check for the word "dollars" in the names; if this is not found, the
columns are assumed to be "counts".
When no other values are provided, read.acs will attempt to
determine endyear and span from the filename.
Value
Returns a new acs-class object with estimates, standard errors
(derived from the census 90% margins of error), and metadata associated
with the survey,
Author(s)
Ezra Haber Glenn eglenn@mit.edu
acs documentation built on May 1, 2019, 8:41 p.m.
R Package Documentation
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Note that we can't provide technical support on individual packages. You should contact the package authors for that.
Description Usage Arguments Details Value Author(s)
Description
When passed a comma-delimited file from the U.S. Census American Community Survey (typically downloaded via the FactFinder website and unzipped), read.acs returns an acs object with estimates, standard errors, and associated metadata.
Most users will prefer to start with acs.fetch to import
data; read.acs is maintained as a "legacy" function, primarily
for use in situations where data is not available via the Census API.
Usage
1 2 |
Arguments
filename |
the name of the |
endyear |
an integer (or "auto") indicating the latest year of the data in the survey (e.g., for data from the 2005-2009 5-year ACS data, endyear would be 2009) |
span |
an integer (should be 1, 3, or 5), or "auto" to have read.acs guess the span from the filename (e.g., for data from the 2005-2009 5-year ACS data, span would be 5) |
col.names |
a vector of column names to be used as
|
acs.units |
a vector of factors indicating what sort of data is contained within each column of data ("count","dollars","proportion", "ratio", "other") |
geocols |
a vector of integers indicating which columns contain the geographic header information; defaults to "auto", which is the same as 3:1, which seems to be the standard for FactFinder-2 downloads |
skip |
an integer indicating how many rows to skip before processing the csv file; defaults to "auto", which will try to guess the proper value |
Details
After executing a query on the U.S. Census American FactFinder site
(http://factfinder2.census.gov), users can download their
results as a zip file containing data in comma-delimited file format
(for example, "ACS_10_5YR_B19013_with_ann.csv"). read.acs
simplifies the creation of new acs objects from these files. The
function uses some rudimentary algorithms to guess intelligently about
values for metadata (such as endyear and geography),
based on current file-format used by the Census "AmericanFactFinder 2"
download site.
The specified filename can be an actual .csv file, or
can be the name of a .zip file downloaded from the FactFinder
site. If the latter, read.acs will extract the necessary data
and leave the compressed zipfile in place.
As a default, read.acs assumes the first three columns will
contain geographic header information, which seems to be the standard
for the new Census American Factfinder download site. Users can also
set different values for the geocols= to specify other columns
for this geographic information. The function will use the first of
these columns for geographic rownames to label estimates. (By
default, then, this would be the third column of the actual file,
since geocols=3:1. For files downloaded via the Census
"legacy" version of FactFinder prior to 2012, users will probably want
to specify geocols=4:1.
As for column names, by default read.acs will scan the file to
determine how many of the initial rows contain "header" information,
and will generate new acs.colnames by concatenating information
found in these rows. Note that this can result in very long
variable names, and users may want to modify the contents of
acs.colnames after creation.
Alternatively, users can inspect downloaded csv files prior to import
and specify the skip= option explicitly, as with
read.csv and other read.XXX functions (i.e., the value
of skip is equal to the number of rows prior to the last header row).
Regardless of whether skip= is set or "auto", however, the
column names will be created using all of the rows at the top of the
file, even the "skipped" ones.
Finally, these new acs.colnames are used to guess intelligently
about values for acs.units, but currently all this includes is
a check for the word "dollars" in the names; if this is not found, the
columns are assumed to be "counts".
When no other values are provided, read.acs will attempt to
determine endyear and span from the filename.
Value
Returns a new acs-class object with estimates, standard errors (derived from the census 90% margins of error), and metadata associated with the survey,
Author(s)
Ezra Haber Glenn eglenn@mit.edu
R Package Documentation
Browse R Packages
We want your feedback!
Note that we can't provide technical support on individual packages. You should contact the package authors for that.
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