[R] problem with reading data files with different numbers o

[(Ted Harding)]

On 02-Aug-07 21:14:20, Tom Cohen wrote:
> Dear  List, 
>    
>   I have 30 data files with different numbers of lines (31 and 33) that
> I want to skip before reading the files. If I use the skip option I can
> only choose either to skip 31 or 33 lines. The data files with 31 lines
> have no blank rows between the lines and the header row. How can I read
> the files without manually checking which files have 31 respectively 33
> lines ?  The only text line I want to keep is the header.
>    
>   Thamks for your help,
>   Tom
>    
>    
>   for (i in 1:num.files) {
>    a<-read.table(file=data[i],
>   ,header=T,skip=31,sep='\t',na.strings="NA") 
>   
>   }

Apologies, I misunderstood your description in my previous response
(I thought that the total number of lines in one of your files was
either 31 or 33, and you wanted to know which was which).

I now think you mean that there are either 0 (you want to skip 31)
or 2 (you want to skip 33) blank lines in the first 33, and then you
want the remainder (aswell as the header). Though it's still not
really clear ...

You can find out how many blank lines there are in the first 33 with

> sum(cbind(readLines("~/00_junk/temp.tr", 33))=="")

and then choose how many lines to skip.

Best wishes,
Ted.

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Date: 03-Aug-07                                       Time: 00:11:21
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