"Andy Bunn" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Hi all:
> 
> I have acquired a 100s of data files that I need to preprocess to get them
> usable in R. The files are fixed width (to a point) and contain 1 to 3 lines
> of header, followed by a variable number of fixed width data lines (that I
> can read with read.fwf). I want to read through the files and remove every
> _line_ where characters column 83-86 do not equal "STD". If I can do that
> and store it in a text file, then I can get the data I need using read.fwf.
> I can't figure out how to do this because of the irregularity of the header
> info buried in the file. It seems like the kind of thing perl or emacs would
> be good at but I'd like to do it all in R if possible. Any pointers
> appreciated.

How large are the files? With today's RAM sizes, it could be feasible
to do something along the lines of

1) x <- readLines(....), i <- read.fwf(...col83-86...)
2) read.fwf(textConnection(x[I %in% "STD"]),......)

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Blegdamsvej 3  
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     2200 Cph. N   
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph: (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - ([EMAIL PROTECTED])             FAX: (+45) 35327907

______________________________________________
[email protected] mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html

Reply via email to