[R] very long integers

[Aaron Robotham]

A quick question really:

I have a database with extremely long integer IDs (eg  
588848900971299297), which is too big for R to cope with internally  
(it appears to store as a double), and when I do any frequency tables  
erroneous results appear. Does anyone know of a package that extends  
internal storage up to LONG, or is the only solution to read it in as  
a character from the original data?

In case anyone is curious, I didn't create the IDs, and in some form I  
must conserve all of the ID information for later use.

Thanks,

Aaron