read_data_files: A function to read in a large file as a numeric file-backed matrix

Description

Note: this function is a wrapper for bigmemory::read.big.matrix()

Usage

read_data_files(
  data_file,
  data_dir,
  rds_dir,
  rds_prefix,
  outfile,
  overwrite,
  quiet,
  ...
)

Value

.rds, .bk, and .desc files are created in data_dir, and obj (a filebacked bigmemory big.matrix object) is returned. See bigmemory documentation for more info on the big.matrix class.

Arguments

data_file: The name of the file to read, not including its directory. Directory should be specified in data_dir
data_dir: The path to the directory where data_file is
rds_dir: The path to the directory in which you want to create the new .rds and .bk files. Defaults to data_dir
rds_prefix: String specifying the user's preferred filename for the to-be-created .rds/.bk files (will be create inside rds_dir folder) Note: rds_prefix cannot be the same as data_file
outfile: Optional: the name (character string) of the prefix of the logfile to be written. Defaults to NULL (no log file written).
overwrite: Logical: if existing .bk/.rds files exist for the specified directory/prefix, should these be overwritten? Defaults to FALSE. Set to TRUE if you want to change the imputation method you're using, etc.
quiet: Logical: should console messages be silenced? Defaults to FALSE
...: Optional: other arguments to be passed to bigmemory::read.big.matrix(). Note: sep is an option to pass here.