# Loading .dat file with ipumsr
**URL:** https://forum.ipums.org/t/loading-dat-file-with-ipumsr/3439
**Category:** General
**Created:** [March 26, 2020, 4:03pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/loading-dat-file-with-ipumsr/3439 "2020-03-26T16:03:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Kirsten\_Walters](https://forum.ipums.org/u/Kirsten_Walters)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2020, 4:03pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/loading-dat-file-with-ipumsr/3439/1 "2020-03-26T16:03:44Z")
I’m trying to read a .dat data file from an NGHIS extract into R using read\_nhgis. I extracted my download using 7-Zip, as I saw recommended in other answers. Regardless, when I try to read in the .dat file, it doesn’t correctly find column delineators and shows up as a data frame with 1 variable. I’d appreciate suggestions regarding how I can fix this.
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### Author:  [@JeffBloem](https://forum.ipums.org/u/JeffBloem)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2020, 2:25pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/loading-dat-file-with-ipumsr/3439/2 "2020-03-27T14:25:11Z")
I am not certain of the core issue here, but it sounds like the .dat file may not be comma delimited. This is the necessary format for the read\_nhgis function to work properly. More documentation is [available here](https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/ipumsr/vignettes/ipums.html).