/ess-view

A small package to view dataframes within spreadsheet softwares

Primary LanguageEmacs LispGNU General Public License v3.0GPL-3.0

ess-view

Summary

A minor-mode to view R dataframes within a spreadsheet software.

Why use ess-view?

Cleaning Data is one of the most boring part of the data analysis process; during this process I find it useful to be able to have a look at the dataframes I'm working with. Great tools already exist for doing this within R/ess (eg DT or ess-R-data-view), but when working with quite big datasets I personally prefer to use a spreadsheet software. The ess-view minor mode simply provides functions to create a temporary csv copy of the dataframe of interest and then calls an external spreadsheet software to view it.

Installing

ess-view is available through MELPA, so, if you can install it using:

M-x package-install [RET] ess-view [RET]

and then add, to your .emacs file:

(require 'ess-view)

Usage

If you want to have a look at a dataframe simply hit (a buffer running a R process)

C-x w

and you will be asked for the name of the object (dataframe) to view... it's a simple as that!

If you would like to modify the dataframe within the spreadsheet software and then have the modified version loaded back in the original R dataframe, use:

C-x q

When you've finished modifying the datasets, save the file (depending on the spreadsheet software you use, you may be asked if you want to save the file as a csv file and/or you want to overwrite the original file: the answer to both question is yes).

By default row.names of the dataframe are not exported; if you want to see the dataframe with its row names, you need to use the prefix argument 0 (zero), i.e. use

C-u 0 C-x w

or

C-u 0 C-x q

Contributing

Yes, please do! See CONTRIBUTING for guidelines.

License

See COPYING. Copyright (c) 2016 boccigionata.