Error in reading xls file in R

Question

I am trying to load a "xls" file into RI have tried using different packages in R like XLConnect,readxl,gdata, but I am unable to read the file properly.

When using XLConnect, I am getting error NullPointerException (Java)

You can find the link to a sample xls file here

s1 <- read_xls("FINRA_IDC_STAR-20110516.xls", sheet = 1,skip=1, col_names=FALSE,guess_max = min(50,100) ,trim_ws = TRUE)

Answer 1

I found a way to read your original files using RODBC . Try this code:

require(RODBC)
conn <- odbcConnectExcel("FINRA_IDC_STAR-20161201.xls")
df <- sqlQuery(conn, "select * from [TradingActivity$]")  
close(conn) 

str(df)

'data.frame':   66 obs. of  14 variables:
 $ F1 : Factor w/ 22 levels "* Indicates trade count is less than 5",..: NA NA NA NA 11 NA 8 NA NA 7 ...
 $ F2 : Factor w/ 4 levels "COUNT","FNMA",..: NA NA NA NA NA NA 2 4 1 NA ...
 $ F3 : Factor w/ 2 levels "SEC ID'S","UNIQUE": NA NA NA NA NA NA NA 2 1 NA ...
 $ F4 : Factor w/ 2 levels "$ TRADES","(000'S)": NA NA NA NA NA NA NA 1 2 NA ...
 $ F5 : Factor w/ 5 levels "*","COUNT","FHLMC",..: NA NA NA NA NA NA 3 5 2 NA ...
 $ F6 : Factor w/ 3 levels "*","SEC ID'S",..: NA NA NA NA NA NA NA 3 2 NA ...
 $ F7 : Factor w/ 3 levels "$ TRADES","(000'S)",..: NA NA NA NA NA NA NA 1 2 NA ...
 $ F8 : Factor w/ 3 levels "COUNT","GNMA",..: NA NA NA NA NA NA 2 3 1 NA ...
 $ F9 : Factor w/ 2 levels "SEC ID'S","UNIQUE": NA NA NA NA NA NA NA 2 1 NA ...
 $ F10: Factor w/ 2 levels "$ TRADES","(000'S)": NA NA NA NA NA NA NA 1 2 NA ...
 $ F11: Factor w/ 4 levels "*","COUNT","OTHER AGENCY",..: NA NA NA NA NA NA 3 4 2 NA ...
 $ F12: Factor w/ 3 levels "*","SEC ID'S",..: NA NA NA NA NA NA NA 3 2 NA ...
 $ F13: Factor w/ 3 levels "$ TRADES","(000'S)",..: NA NA NA NA NA NA NA 1 2 NA ...
 $ F14: logi  NA NA NA NA NA NA ...