Mixed boolean and numeric values in a column causes read_excel to crash Rstudio but works fine from command line

[txemaheredia]

I was having a ton of problems with read_excel crashing my Rstudio session. I googled around, tried the suggested methods of re-saving the excel in different tools, formats, or OS. Nothing worked.

Then, I tried to make a silly test in an Rscript to run it from the command line, to see if I got some additional output, and it simply worked flawlessly without crashing. From there, I found out that the culprit is having a mix of boolean and numeric values in the same column. Opening such excel crashes Rstudio, but works from command line giving a few warnings.

Might this help explain previous issues with these crashes?

---

Brief description of the problem

library(readxl)

# basedir<-"wherever/your/files/are"

file_crash <- file.path(basedir,"repexp_column_mixed.xlsx")
data <- readxl::read_excel(path = file_crash, 
                           sheet = "Sheet1",
                           col_names = F, 
                           trim_ws = T)
warnings()
dim(data)


file_noCrash <- file.path(basedir,"repexp_column_toNumber.xlsx")
data <- readxl::read_excel(path = file_noCrash, 
                           sheet = "Sheet1",
                           col_names = F, 
                           trim_ws = T)
warnings()
dim(data)

Running the "crash" chunk crashes Rstudio and gives this output in command line:

New names:
• `` -> `...1`
• `` -> `...2`
• `` -> `...3`
Warning messages:
1: Coercing boolean to numeric in C1 / R1C3
2: Coercing boolean to numeric in C3 / R3C3
3: Coercing boolean to numeric in C5 / R5C3
4: Coercing boolean to numeric in C7 / R7C3
[1] 7 3

Running the "non-crash" chunk works fine in Rstudio and gives this output in command line:

New names:
• `` -> `...1`
• `` -> `...2`
• `` -> `...3`
[1] 7 3

sessionInfo()

R version 4.4.0 (2024-04-24)
Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin20
Running under: macOS Monterey 12.7.1

Matrix products: default
BLAS:   /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.4-x86_64/Resources/lib/libRblas.0.dylib 
LAPACK: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.4-x86_64/Resources/lib/libRlapack.dylib;  LAPACK version 3.12.0

locale:
[1] es_ES.UTF-8/es_ES.UTF-8/es_ES.UTF-8/C/es_ES.UTF-8/es_ES.UTF-8

time zone: Europe/Madrid
tzcode source: internal

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

other attached packages:
[1] readxl_1.4.3

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
 [1] compiler_4.4.0   magrittr_2.0.3   cli_3.6.3        tools_4.4.0     
 [5] pillar_1.9.0     glue_1.7.0       tibble_3.2.1     utf8_1.2.4      
 [9] fansi_1.0.6      cellranger_1.1.0 vctrs_0.6.5      lifecycle_1.0.4 
[13] pkgconfig_2.0.3  rlang_1.1.4