[R] Read

[Val]

That is my problem. The spacing between columns is not consistent.  It
  may be  single space  or multiple spaces (two or three).

On Mon, Feb 22, 2021 at 6:14 PM Bill Dunlap <williamwdunlap using gmail.com> wrote:
>
> You said the column values were separated by space characters.
> Copying the text from gmail shows that some column names and column
> values are separated by single spaces (e.g., between x1 and x2) and
> some by multiple spaces (e.g., between x3 and x4.  Did the mail mess
> up the spacing or is there some other way to tell where the omitted
> values are?
>
> -Bill
>
> On Mon, Feb 22, 2021 at 2:54 PM Val <valkremk using gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I Tried that one and it did not work. Please see the error message
> > Error in read.table(text = "x1  x2  x3 x4\n1 B12 \n2       C23
> > \n322 B32      D34 \n4            D44 \n51     D53\n60 D62         ",
> > :
> >   more columns than column names
> >
> > On Mon, Feb 22, 2021 at 5:39 PM Bill Dunlap <williamwdunlap using gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Since the columns in the file are separated by a space character, " ",
> > > add the read.table argument sep=" ".
> > >
> > > -Bill
> > >
> > > On Mon, Feb 22, 2021 at 2:21 PM Val <valkremk using gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Hi all, I am trying to read a messy data  but facing  difficulty.  The
> > > > data has several columns separated by blank space(s).  Each column
> > > > value may have different lengths across the rows.   The first
> > > > row(header) has four columns. However, each row may not have the four
> > > > column values.  For instance, the first data row has only the first
> > > > two column values. The fourth data row has the first and last column
> > > > values, the second and the third column values are missing for this
> > > > row..  How do I read this data set correctly? Here is my sample data
> > > > set, output and desired output.   To make it clear to each data point
> > > > I have added the row and column numbers. I cannot use fixed width
> > > > format reading because each row  may have different length for  a
> > > > given column.
> > > >
> > > > dat<-read.table(text="x1  x2  x3 x4
> > > > 1 B22
> > > > 2         C33
> > > > 322 B22      D34
> > > > 4                 D44
> > > > 51         D53
> > > > 60 D62            ",header=T, fill=T,na.strings=c("","NA"))
> > > >
> > > > Output
> > > >       x1  x2     x3     x4
> > > > 1   1     B12 <NA> NA
> > > > 2   2    C23 <NA>  NA
> > > > 3 322  B32  D34   NA
> > > > 4   4   D44  <NA>  NA
> > > > 5  51 D53  <NA>   NA
> > > > 6  60 D62  <NA>  NA
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Desired output
> > > >    x1   x2     x3       x4
> > > > 1   1    B22    <NA>   NA
> > > > 2   2   <NA>  C33     NA
> > > > 3 322  B32    NA      D34
> > > > 4   4   <NA>   NA      D44
> > > > 5  51  <NA>  D53     NA
> > > > 6  60   D62   <NA>   NA
> > > >
> > > > Thank you,
> > > >
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