[R] Data separated by spaces, getting data into R using fiel

[(Ted Harding)]

On 08-Sep-09 16:17:00, David Winsemius wrote:
> On Sep 8, 2009, at 12:00 PM, Lauri Nikkinen wrote:
>> Ok, I think that I have to give up and try to get this data separated
>> by some char. It seem pretty much impossible to separate those fields.
>> Thanks for your help and efforts.
> 
> The solution that Henrique offered seems to be a complete one:
> 
> read.table(textConnection(gsub("([0-9]+)", ";\\1;", "DF12 This is an  
> example 1 This
> + DF12 This is an 1232 This is
> + DF14 This is 12334 This is an
> + DF15 This 23 This is an example
> + ")), sep = ";")
>    V1 V2                   V3    V4                  V5
> 1 DF 12  This is an example      1                This
> 2 DF 12          This is an   1232             This is
> 3 DF 14             This is  12334         This is an
> 4 DF 15                This     23  This is an example

Surely the above solution is ad-hoc? It is based on an assumption
that the fields alternate Text/Num/Text/Num/Text (hence the "gsub"
usage), and does not at all make use of the field-width information
varlength <- c(2, 2, 18, 5, 18). It simply puts a ";" separator at
the start and end of every sequence of digits.

If that is how Lauri's data really are organised, then the solution
could work. But, if not, ...

Ted.


> Verus what you wanted...
>  > structure(list(V1 = structure(c(1L, 1L, 1L, 1L), .Label = "DF",
> class
> + = "factor"),
> +    V2 = c(12L, 12L, 14L, 15L), V3 = structure(c(4L, 3L, 2L,
> +    1L), .Label = c("This", "This is", "This is an", "This is an  
> example"
> +    ), class = "factor"), V4 = c(1L, 1232L, 12334L, 23L), V5 =
> + structure(1:4, .Label = c("This",
> +    "This is", "This is an", "This is an example"), class =
> + "factor")), .Names = c("V1",
> + "V2", "V3", "V4", "V5"), class = "data.frame", row.names = c(NA,
> + -4L))
>    V1 V2                 V3    V4                 V5
> 1 DF 12 This is an example     1               This
> 2 DF 12         This is an  1232            This is
> 3 DF 14            This is 12334         This is an
> 4 DF 15               This    23 This is an example
> 
> Unless you can be any clearer ... than you have been to this hour.
> 
>>
>> -L
>>
>> 2009/9/8 Lauri Nikkinen <lauri.nikkinen at iki.fi>:
>>> This is the file (see the attachment) that represents the problem I'm
>>> facing with the original file. I'm looking for some generic way to
>>> solve this problem. Thank you for your time.
>>>
>>> -L
>>>
>>> 2009/9/8 Barry Rowlingson <b.rowlingson at lancaster.ac.uk>:
>>>> On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 1:52 PM, Lauri  
>>>> Nikkinen<lauri.nikkinen at iki.fi> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> But this is not the solution I was looking for. Thanks.
>>>>
>>>>  I think the only way you'll get the solution you are looking for is
>>>> if you can let us have a copy of the original input file, or at  
>>>> least
>>>> the first few lines - and not pasted into an email because special
>>>> characters like spaces and tabs get smushed up and confuse things.
>>>>
>>>
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> PLEASE do read the posting guide
>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
> 
> David Winsemius, MD
> Heritage Laboratories
> West Hartford, CT
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding at manchester.ac.uk>
Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861
Date: 08-Sep-09                                       Time: 17:39:27
------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------