Conparison:read excel files

read.csv() v.s. read_excel()

Here we use a 37.1 MB excel file as an example.

we can change the xlsx file to csv file, then use read.csv().

system.time(file_2 <- read.csv("C:\\Users\\htssr\\Desktop\\wy_10_30.csv",header = T))

##    user  system elapsed 
##   15.65    0.11   15.76

However, a better way to read excel files is to utilize package readxl.

library(readxl)
system.time(file_3 <- read_excel("C:\\Users\\htssr\\Desktop\\wy_10_30.xlsx",col_names = T ))

##    user  system elapsed 
##    5.47    0.58    6.05

In conclusion, it is a good idea to try package readxl.