[R] skipping fields in scan()

[Vadim Ogranovich]

Dear R-Users,

Is it possible to instruct scan() to skip fields when reading from a file.
Here is an example. Suppose I have a three-column table file, "foo"

1 2 3
4 5 6

and I want to read in only the first and the third columns skipping the
second. If memory serves me well (though I might be wrong), in S-Plus you
could accomplish this by putting NULL in the respective position of the
list, e.g.

scan("foo", list(a=integer(0),NULL,c=integer(0)))

Is there a similar construct in R?

For a workaround I know I can read the whole thing and then drop the
unneeded column(s), or alternatively I can preprocess the file with a Perl
script, but before that I'd like to make sure there is no a more direct way
of doing this.

Thanks,
Vadim

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