Manage data and state: Load data into Radiant, Save data to disk, Remove a dataset from memory, or Save/Load the state of the app
When you first start Radiant a dataset (diamonds) with
information on diamond prices is shown.
It is good practice to add a description of the data and variables to
each file you use. For the files that are bundled with Radiant you will
see a brief overview of the variables etc. below a table of the first 10
rows of the data. To add a description for your own data click the
Add/edit data description check-box. A text-input box will
open below the table where you can add text in
markdown
format. The description provided for the diamonds data
included with Radiant should serve as a good example. After adding or
editing a description click the Update description
button.
To rename a dataset loaded in Radiant click the
Rename data check box, enter a new name, and click the
Rename button
The best way to load and save data for use in Radiant (and R) is to
use the R-data format (rds or rda). These are binary files that can be
stored compactly and read into R quickly. Select rds (or
rda) from the Load data of type dropdown and
click Browse to locate the file(s) you want to load on your
computer.
You can get data from a spreadsheet (e.g., Excel or Google sheets)
into Radiant in two ways. First, you can save data from the spreadsheet
in csv format and then, in Radiant, choose csv from the
Load data of type dropdown. Most likely you will have a
header row in the csv file with variable names. If the data are not
comma separated you can choose semicolon or tab separated. To load a csv
file click ‘Browse’ and locate the file on your computer.
Alternatively, you can select and copy the data in the spreadsheet
using CTRL-C (or CMD-C on mac), go to Radiant, choose
clipboard from the Load data of type dropdown,
and click the Paste button. This is a short-cut that can be
convenient for smaller datasets that are cleanly formatted.
If the data is available in R’s global workspace (e.g., you opened a
data set in Rstudio and then started Radiant from the
addins menu) you can move (or copy) it to Radiant by
selecting from global workspace. Select the data.frame(s)
you want to use and click the Load button.
To access all data files bundled with Radiant choose
examples from the Load data of type dropdown
and then click the Load button. These files are used to
illustrate the various data and analysis tools accessible in Radiant.
For example, the avengers and publishers data
are used to illustrate how to combine data in R(adiant) (i.e., Data
> Combine).
If csv data is available online choose
csv (url) from the dropdown, paste the url into the text
input shown, and press Load. If an rda file is
available online choose rda (url) from the dropdown, paste
the url into the text input, and press Load.
As mentioned above, the most convenient way to get data in and out of
Radiant is to use the R-data format (rds or rda). Choose
rds (or rda) from the
Save data to type dropdown and click the Save
button to save the selected dataset to file.
Again, it is good practice to add a description of the data and
variables to each file you use. To add a description for your own data
click the ‘Add/edit data description’ check-box, add text to the
text-input window shown in
markdown
format, and then click the Update description button. When
you save the data as an rds (or rda) file the description you created
(or edited) will automatically be added to the file as an
attribute.
Getting data from Radiant into a spreadsheet can be achieved in two
ways. First, you can save data in csv format and load the file into the
spreadsheet (i.e., choose csv from the
Save data to type dropdown and click the Save
button). Alternatively, you can copy the data from Radiant into the
clipboard by choosing clipboard from the dropdown and
clicking the Copy button, open the spreadsheet, and paste
the data from Radiant using CTRL-V (or CMD-V on mac).
To move or copy data from Radiant into R(studio)’s global workspace
select to global workspace from the
Save data to type dropdown and click the Save
button.
It is convenient to work with state files if you want complete your
work at another time, perhaps on another computer, or to review previous
work you completed using Radiant. You can save and load the state of the
Radiant app just as you would a data file. The state file (extension
.state.rda) will contain (1) the data loaded in Radiant,
(2) settings for the analyses you were working on, (3) and any reports
or code from the Report menu. To save the current state of the
app to your hard-disk click the
icon in the navbar and then click Save radiant state file.
To load load a previous state click the
icon in the navbar and the click
Load radiant state file.
You can also share a state file with others that would like to
replicate your analyses. As an example, download and then load the state
file
radiant-example.state.rda
as described above. You will navigate automatically to the Data >
Visualize tab and will see a plot. See also the Data >
View tab for some additional settings loaded from the state file.
There is also a report in Report > Rmd created using the
Radiant interface. The html file
radiant-example.nb.html
contains the output created by clicking the Knit report
button.
Loading and saving state also works with Rstudio. If you start
Radiant from Rstudio and use
and then click
Stop, the r_data environment and the
r_info and r_state lists will be put into
Rstudio’s global workspace. If you start radiant again from the
Addins menu it will use r_data,
r_info, and r_state to restore state. Also, if
you load a state file directly into Rstudio it will be used when you
start Radiant.
Use Refresh in the
menu in the navbar to
return to a clean/new state.
If data are loaded in memory that you no longer need in the current
session check the Remove data from memory box. Then select
the data to remove and click the Remove data button. One
datafile will always remain open.
R-code can be used in Report > Rmd or Report >
R to load data from a file directly into the active Radiant
session. Use register("insert-dataset-name") to add a
dataset to the Datasets dropdown. R-code can also be used
to extract data from Radiant and save it to disk.
For an overview of related R-functions used by Radiant to load and save data see Data > Manage