How To Use Readxl Package To Read Data In R

In this article let’s discuss how to use the Readxl Package to read data in the R Programming Language.

Readxl Package in R

The readxl package in R is used to read data from the Excel files, i.e., the format .xls and .xlsx files. The readxl package in R provides a function called read_excel() which is used to read the data from Excel files. The read_excel() method accepts the Excel file which needs to read the content from it. 

Syntax

library(readxl)
data<-read_excel(‘excelFile’,sheet=1)

Parameters

• excelFile – It specifies the excel file from which we read data.
• sheet – It specifies from which work sheet we need to read. It is an optional parameter.

Syntax to import and install the readxl package in R

install.package('readxl')
library(readxl)

Here let’s look into how to read the data of the first worksheet from an excel file using the read_excel() method present in the Readxl package.

Output

   Product   Age Gender Education MaritalStatus Usage Fitness Income Miles
   <chr>   <dbl> <chr>      <dbl> <chr>         <dbl>   <dbl>  <dbl> <dbl>
 1 TM195      18 Male          14 Single            3       4  29562   112
 2 TM195      19 Male          15 Single            2       3  31836    75
 3 TM195      19 Female        14 Partnered         4       3  30699    66
 4 TM195      19 Male          12 Single            3       3  32973    85
 5 TM195      20 Male          13 Partnered         4       2  35247    47
 6 TM195      20 Female        14 Partnered         3       3  32973    66

The dataset appears to contain information related to fitness products and their users. Each row in the dataset represents a particular individual, and the columns provide various attributes and characteristics associated with them.

Reading Specific Rows using Readxl Package in R

The readxl package in R to read Excel files, and the read_excel() function is commonly used for this purpose. to read specific rows from an Excel file using readxl, we can use the skip and n_max arguments to skip a certain number of rows at the beginning and read a specific number of rows.

Output:

   TM195  `19` Male    `15` Single      `2`   `3` `31836`  `75`
   <chr> <dbl> <chr>  <dbl> <chr>     <dbl> <dbl>   <dbl> <dbl>
 1 TM195    19 Female    14 Partnered     4     3   30699    66
 2 TM195    19 Male      12 Single        3     3   32973    85
 3 TM195    20 Male      13 Partnered     4     2   35247    47
 4 TM195    20 Female    14 Partnered     3     3   32973    66
 5 TM195    21 Female    14 Partnered     3     3   35247    75

read_excel function from the readxl package to read an Excel file named ‘CardioGoodFitness.xlsx’. The skip argument is set to 2, which means you are skipping the first two rows of the Excel file.

After running this command, the data from the Excel file is stored in the data1 variable. You can now explore and analyze the contents of the data1 dataframe in R.

Reading Specific Cells using Readxl Package in R

In the readxl package in R, we can use the read_excel() function to read specific cells from an Excel file.

Output:

  TM195  `18` Male    `14`
  <chr> <dbl> <chr>  <dbl>
1 TM195    19 Male      15
2 TM195    19 Female    14
3 TM195    19 Male      12
4 TM195    20 Male      13

read_excel function with the range argument to read a specific range of cells from the Excel file ‘CardioGoodFitness.xlsx’. The specified range is “A2:D6,” indicating you want to read data from columns A to D and rows 2 to 6.