I am able to replicate your problem, using R 2.7.2: R version 2.7.2 (2008-08-25) Copyright (C) 2008 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing ISBN 3-900051-07-0 ... > source <- read.table("clipboard") > source V1 V2 V3 V4 V5 V6 V7 1 HIT000000001 hg18 chr8 + 1759549 1894206 Human 2 HIT000000005 hg18 chr11 - 8593662 8636959 Human 3 HIT000000007 hg18 chr5 + 31675274 32146794 Human 4 HIT000000011 hg18 chr5 + 79739648 79810715 Human 'data.frame': 4 obs. of 7 variables: $ V1: Factor w/ 4 levels "HIT000000001",..: 1 2 3 4 $ V2: Factor w/ 1 level "hg18": 1 1 1 1 $ V3: Factor w/ 3 levels "chr11","chr5",..: 3 1 2 2 $ V4: Factor w/ 2 levels "-","+": 2 1 2 2 $ V5: int 1759549 8593662 31675274 79739648 $ V6: int 1894206 8636959 32146794 79810715 $ V7: Factor w/ 1 level "Human": 1 1 1 1 Plus/minus signs get read into factor variable V4. If spaces b/w the signs and the numbers are eliminated, everything works as expected. Aleksey On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 10:06 AM, Prof Brian Ripley wrote: > Please do show us the courtesy of following the posting guide, and make > sure you use a current version of R. R 2.7.2 and 2.8.0 beta do not do this, > and you were asked to update *before* posting. > > [My guess is that you are using the long-obsolete 2.7.0.] > > > On Mon, 6 Oct 2008, Gundala Viswanath wrote: > > Dear all, >> >> I have the following dataset: >> >> # HIT or acc, UCSC genome, chromosome, strand, start, end, species name >> HIT000000001 hg18 chr8 + 1759549 1894206 Human >> HIT000000005 hg18 chr11 - 8593662 8636959 Human >> HIT000000007 hg18 chr5 + 31675274 32146794 Human >> HIT000000011 hg18 chr5 + 79739648 79810715 Human >> >> (also downloadable at http://dpaste.com/82688/plain/ ) >> >> However with the following command: >> >> source <- read.table("clipboard") >>> source >>> >> V1 V2 V3 V4 V5 V6 V7 >> 1 HIT000000001 hg18 chr8 0 1759549 1894206 Human >> 2 HIT000000005 hg18 chr11 0 8593662 8636959 Human >> 3 HIT000000007 hg18 chr5 0 31675274 32146794 Human >> 4 HIT000000011 hg18 chr5 0 79739648 79810715 Human >> >> Note that the V4 column read.table fail to capture the PLUS/MINUS sign, >> it gives 0 instead. >> >> Is there a way I can enable read.table to recognize those signs? >> >> >> - Gundala Viswanath >> Jakarta - Indonesia >> >> ______________________________________________ >> R-help@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. >> > > Thar *does* apply to you! > > > -- > Brian D. Ripley, ripley@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 > > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@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. > [[alternative HTML version deleted]]