[R] Import fixed-format ascii file with mixed record types

[Jim Holtman]

you probably need to split your file into several files according to  
the format. you can use something like perl or do it within R by doing  
readline and then separating the lines. you can use grep, split and  
textConnection to do most of the work.

What is the problem you are trying to solve?

Sent from my iPhone.

On Feb 1, 2010, at 14:33, trece por ciento <el13porciento at yahoo.com>  
wrote:

> Thanks David, but can read.fwf cope with different record types?
> For example, if recordtype is the 4th character, I could have:
>
> 011125678 ---> This is record Type 1
> 011136779 ---> This is record Type 1
> 011124943 ---> This is record Type 1
> 011286711 ---> This is record Type 2
> 011234872 ---> This is record Type 2
> 011135628 ---> This is record Type 1
>
> So, how can I tell read.fwf to take the correct type into account?
> Thanks again,
> Hug
>
> --- On Mon, 2/1/10, David Winsemius <dwinsemius at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> From: David Winsemius <dwinsemius at comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: [R] Import fixed-format ascii file with mixed record  
> types
> To: "trece por ciento" <el13porciento at yahoo.com>
> Cc: r-help at r-project.org
> Date: Monday, February 1, 2010, 12:01 PM
>
>
> On Feb 1, 2010, at 11:40 AM, trece por ciento wrote:
>
>> I need to import several ascii files in fixed format with two  
>> different record types. The data comes from European Labor Force  
>> Surveys, wich is a household survey. The first record type is for  
>> people over 16 years, and the second much sorter is for people aged  
>> 15 or less (this record has a filler with several blanks to get the  
>> same record length).
>> The files tipically have 160000 records, with 176 characters per  
>> record, the data is numeric, corresponding to 102 variables, mostly  
>> integers (seven variables have two decimals). My opertating system  
>> is Windows XP.
>> My questions:
>> 1. Wich do you think is the best way to import the files into R?
>
>
> ?read.fwf
>
>> 2. Could you give me any references or examples?
>
> There are examples in the help page.
>
>> Thanking you in advance,
>> Hug
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>     [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>
>> ______________________________________________
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>> 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.