read.rsk {oce} | R Documentation

## Read an RBR rsk or Ruskin export file

### Description

Read an RBR rsk or txt file, e.g. as produced by an RBR logger, producing an object of class `rsk`.

### Usage

    read.rsk(file, from=1, to, by=1, type,
                tz=getOption("oceTz", default="UTC"), patm=FALSE,
                processingLog, debug=getOption("oceDebug"))

### Arguments

`file` | a connection or a character string giving the name of the file to load. Note that `file` must be a character string, because connections are not used in that case, which is instead handled with database calls.
`from` | indication of the first datum to read. This can a positive integer to indicate sequence number, the POSIX time of the first datum, or a character string that can be converted to a POSIX time. (For POSIX times, be careful about the `tz` argument.)
`to` | an indication of the last datum to be read, in the same format as `from`. If `to` is missing, data will be read to the end of the file.
`by` | an indication of the stride length to use while walking through the file. If this is an integer, then `by-1` samples are skipped between each pair of samples that is read. If this is a string representing a time interval, in colon-separated format (HH:MM:SS or MM:SS), then this interval is divided by the sampling interval, to get the stride length.
`type` | optional file type, presently can be `rsk` or `txt` (for a text export of an RBR rsk or hex file). If this argument is not provided, an attempt will be made to infer the type from the file name and contents.
`tz` | time zone. The value `oceTz` is set at package setup.
`patm` | controls the handling of atmospheric pressure, an important issue for RBR instruments that record absolute pressure; see “Details”.
`processingLog` | if provided, the action item to be stored in the log. (Typically only provided for internal calls; the default that it provides is better for normal calls by a user.)
`debug` | a flag that can be set to `TRUE` to turn on debugging.

### Details

This can read files produced by several RBR instruments. At the moment, five styles are understood: (1) text file produced as an export of an RBR `hex` or `rsk` file; (2) text file with columns for temperature and pressure (with sampling times indicated in the header); (3) text file with four columns, in which the date the time of day are given in the first two columns, followed by the temperature, and pressure; (4) text file with five columns, in which depth in the water column is given after the pressure; (5) an SQLite-based database format. The first four options are provided mainly for historical reasons, since RBR instruments at the date of writing commonly use the SQLite format, though the first option is common for all instruments that produce a `hex` file that can be read using Ruskin.

Options 2-4 are mostly obsolete, and will be removed from future versions.

A note on conductivity. RBR devices record conductivity in mS/cm, and it is this value that is stored in the object returned by `read.rsk`. This can be converted to conductivity ratio (which is what many other instruments report) by dividing by 42.914 (see Culkin and Smith, 1980) which will be necessary in any seawater-related function that takes conductivity ratio as an argument (see “Examples”).

A note on pressure. RBR devices tend to record absolute pressure (i.e. sea pressure plus atmospheric pressure), unlike most oceanographic instruments that record sea pressure (or an estimate thereof). The handling of pressure is controlled with the `patm` argument, for which there are three possibilities. (1) If `patm` is `FALSE` (the default), then pressure read from the data file is stored in the `data` slot of return value, and the `metadata` item `pressureType` is set to the string `"absolute"`. (2) If `patm` is `TRUE`, then an estimate of atmospheric pressure is subtracted from the raw data. For data files in the SQLite format (i.e. `*.rsk` files), this estimate will be the value read from the file, or the “standard atmosphere” value 10.1325 dbar, if the file lacks this information. (3) If `patm` is a numerical value (or list of values, one for each sampling time), then `patm` is subtracted from the raw data. In cases 2 and 3, an additional column named `pressureOriginal` is added to the `data` slot to store the value contained in the data file, and `pressureType` is set to a string starting with `"sea"`. See `as.ctd` for details of how this setup facilitates the conversion of `rsk-class` objects to `ctd-class` objects.

### Value

An object of `rsk-class`.

### Author(s)

Dan Kelley and Clark Richards

### References

Culkin, F., and Norman D. Smith, 1980. Determination of the concentration of potassium chloride solution having the same electrical conductivity, at 15 C and infinite frequency, as standard seawater of salinity 35.0000 ppt (Chlorinity 19.37394 ppt). IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, 5, pp 22-23.

### See Also

The documentation for `rsk-class` explains the structure of `rsk` objects, and also outlines other functions dealing with them. Since RBR has a wide variety of instruments, `rsk` datasets can be quite general, and it is common to coerce `rsk` objects to other forms for specialized work, e.g. `as.ctd` can be used to create CTD object, so that the generic plot obeys the CTD format.

[Package oce version 0.9-18 Index]