[R] sort of fread to read from a file at fixed positions?

[Gael de Lannoy]

Hello everybody,

I need to read a file with a header (EDF files, recorded 
electroencephalogram signals) that has fixed byte positions for each 
field of its header.
These fields have no separator between them, for example:

<8 ascii name of the patient><10ascii start time of the recording><4 
ascii ... > etc.

I read that perfectly in Octave by using fread, fseek and other 
C-derived file access methods, but i dont see such a method being 
avalaible in R? I read the scan help page but it doesn't seem to be able 
to read x chars then from that position read another y chars then jump 
at position 80 and read z chars etc.

Thanks in advance,

Gael de Lannoy.