[R] New to List - just starting to learn R - question about reading in data

[Prof Brian Ripley]

Are you looking for read.fwf?

I've not seen that form of data file since the days of punched cards.
(That _was_ the era when SPSS was written._)

(Real names and real signature blocks are preferred here.)

On Fri, 7 Nov 2008, someone wrote:

> Hi, everyone,
>
> I'm new to R and the List, and excited to be here.  I am coming from a 
> background working in SPSS 16, primarily, which has a lot of easy options for 
> reading in data.  I am working in R in an Ubuntu Linux environment, and I'm 
> learning with R Commander.
>
> Now, here's my question. In my line of work, I'm used to getting data in some 
> kind of flat ASCII format with a separate file indicating which columns 
> correspond to which variables.  In the Venables and Ripley book on S/R that 
> I'm reading, there doesn't seem to be a way to read this kind of data format 
> into R, and I haven't found anything online.
>
> If anyone has the tine, I'd sure appreciate a little guidance. 
> Thanks,
>
> DD
>
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-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595