Here is an example: # read and print first 10 lines one by one # the next two lines could be collapsed into con <- file("myfile", r) con <- file("myfile") open(con) for(i in 1:10) print(readLines(con, n=1)) close(con)
Also its possible that you may not need open. For example, one can just read it all in at once like this: mylines <- readLines("myfile") # and now mylines[1] is the first line, etc. # or my.numbers <- scan("myfile") # or my.table <- read.table("myfile") On 4/14/05, Na Li <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I'm been doing more and more of file text parsing inside R instead of > coping with Perl. For that, I need open a file and read it line-by-line. > I found the documentation for 'open' isn't very clear. > > Right now it has > > ,----[ *help(R)[open]* ] > | 'open' opens a connection. In general functions using connections > | will open them if they are not open, but then close them again, so > | to leave a connection open call 'open' explicitly. > `---- > > It seems that one has to call 'open' to open a live connection that can be > parsed line by line (using readLines() or scan() to read). But open() > cannot be directly applied to a file name. > > In fact, one only needs supply the 'open' argument in file() with > something other than the empty string, > > ,---- > | > con <- file ("S200.dat") > | > isOpen (con) > | [1] FALSE > | > con <- file ("S200.dat", open = "r") > | > isOpen (con) > | [1] TRUE > `---- > > It is not clear to me how 'open()' is supposed to be used. It took me a > while to figure this out and I thought it might be worthwhile to add one > sentence or two to make it more clear in the doc. > > Cheers, > > Michael > > -- > Na (Michael) Li, Ph.D. > Division of Biostatistics A443 Mayo Building, MMC 303 > School of Public Health 420 Delaware St SE > University of Minnesota Minneapolis, MN 55455 > Phone: (612) 626-4765 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Fax: (612) 626-0660 http://www.biostat.umn.edu/~nali > > GPG Public Key: > http://www.umn.edu/lookup?SET_INSTITUTION=UMNTC&UID=nali&show_pgp=1 > > ______________________________________________ > R-devel@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel > ______________________________________________ R-devel@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel