[R] Reading ASCII files

[Liaw, Andy]

You can use fill=TRUE and na.string="" in read.table().  E.g.,

> try.dat <- read.table("clipboard", colClasses=rep("character", 6), 
+                       header=TRUE, fill=TRUE, na.string="")
> try.dat
  X1st line    ID  description   snp_id genotype
1  2nd line 10003          Low rs152240     <NA>
2  3rd line 10003     Moderate rs189011       TC
3  4th line 10004 Conservative rs152240       GC
4  5th line 10004          Bad rs154354     <NA>
5  6th line 10013          Bad rs152240     <NA>
6  7th line 10019 Conservative rs152240       AC

HTH,
Andy

> From: Cristian Pattaro
> 
> Dear all,
> I need to read an ASCII file with diffent length lines.
> 
> This is what is contained in the file gene.txt:
> 1st line  ID description snp_id genotype
> 2nd line 10003 Low rs152240 
> 3rd line 10003 Moderate rs189011 TC
> 4th line 10004 Conservative rs152240 GC
> 5th line 10004 Bad rs154354
> 6th line 10013 Bad rs152240
> 7th line 10019 Conservative rs152240 AC
> etc...
> 
> This is what I would like to obtain in R:
> ID        description         snp_id          genotype
> 10003    Low                 rs152240     NA
> 10003    Moderate         rs189011     TC
> 10004    Conservative    rs152240     GC
> 10004    Bad                  rs154354     NA
> 10013    Bad                  rs152240     NA
> 10019    Conservative    rs152240     AC
> 
> Read.table() doesn't work in these situations because of the 
> irregular 
> pattern of data. Have you got any suggestion?
> Thanks a lot!
> Cristian
> 
> ===========================================
> Cristian Pattaro
> ===========================================
> 
> Unit of Epidemiology & Medical Statistics
> Department of Medicine and Public Health
> University of Verona
> cristian at biometria.univr.it
> http://biometria.univr.it
> ===========================================
> 
> 
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