Greetings,
I am new to R and am having trouble with parsing a file with the following characteristics:

*         Individual results for a single sample are written to multiple lines.

*         First 16 columns are constant from sample to sample.

*         Remaining 10 need to be matched up (cross-tabbed?)

o   (the exact contents for the remaining 10 vary from sample to sample, as indicated in the extract below)

*         Ultimate goal is to run various comparisons between the variable columns, compare samples from separate populations, and graph samples from the separate populations.

*         (An extract is provided below)

The data is initially extracted from an SQL database into Excel, then saved as a tab-delimited text file for use in R.
I have been successful in using subset() to extract specific sample types, but have not yet been able to transform the data so that all the data needed is on a single line.  I have looked at several R manuals, read through 'R in a Nutshell', prowled the help resources (R Site Search and the Google link), tried stack(), subset(), reshape(), and several other functions, to no avail.

Thank you very much for your help.  This seems like a wonderful community,
Guy Jett, R.G.
Project Geologist
gjett@itsi.com<mailto:gjett@itsi.com>

Example Data Input (subset):
                fldsampid            CLP_ID  sacode  matrix   etc...      prccode                Lab         EXMCODE           Analysis                PARLABEL                PARVQ Result
2268       LHR020GW-01E2                               N             WG                        INO        BRLS      NONE    E300       CL           =             23590.9
2269       LHR020GW-01E2                               N             WG                        INO        BRLS      NONE    E300       PO4        ND          50
2270       LHR020GW-01E2                               N             WG                        INO        BRLS      NONE    E300       SO4        =             22460
2272       LHR020GW-01E2                               N             WG                        MET       BRLS      FLDFLT  E1631    HG          =             0.00171
2273       LHR020GW-01E2                               N             WG                        MET       BRLS      FLDFLT  E1638    AG          =             2.57
2274       LHR020GW-01E2                               N             WG                        MET       BRLS      FLDFLT  E1638    AL           =             122
2275       LHR020GW-01E2                               N             WG                        MET       BRLS      FLDFLT  E1638    AS           =             317
2276       LHR020GW-01E2                               N             WG                        MET       BRLS      FLDFLT  E1638    B             =             9970
2289       LHR020GW-01E2                               N             WG                        MET       BRLS      FLDFLT  E1638    V             =             131
2290       LHR020GW-01E2                               N             WG                        MET       BRLS      FLDFLT  E1638    Zn           =             1.76
2291       LHR020GW-01E2                               N             WG                        MET       BRLS      METHOD              E1638    PB           ND                0.008
2292       LHR020GW-01E2                               N             WG                        MI          BRLS      NONE    A2320    ALK        =             807000
2293       LHR020GW-01E2                               N             WG                        MI          BRLS      NONE    A2320    ALKB      =             807000
2294       LHR020GW-01E2                               N             WG                        MI          BRLS      NONE    A2320    ALKC      ND          2500
2295       LHR020GW-01E2                               N             WG                        ORG       BRLS      NONE    A5310B DOC       =             49330
2296       LHR020GW-01E2                               N             WG                        SN          BRLS      NONE    E300       NO3       =             792
2326       LHR020SD-00E2                 N             SE                           MET       BRLS      METHOD              E1630    MEHG   =             4.28
2327       LHR020SD-00E2                 N             SE                           MI          BRLS      METHOD              E160.3   SOLID    =             48.45
2328       LHR020SD-00E2                 N             SE                           ORG       BRLS      NONE    SW9060                TOC        =             4.823
2329       LHR020SD-00E2 MY77J8 N             SE                           MET       A4SW    METHOD              C245.5   HG          =             5100
2330       LHR020SD-00E2 MY77J8 N             SE                           MET       A4SW    METHOD              E200.8   AG          ND          1050
2331       LHR020SD-00E2 MY77J8 N             SE                           MET       A4SW    METHOD              E200.8   AS           =             5500
2332       LHR020SD-00E2 MY77J8 N             SE                           MET       A4SW    METHOD              E200.8   B             =             11400
2346       LHR020SD-00E2 MY77J8 N             SE                           MET       A4SW    SW3050B             SW6010B             V             =                56900
2349       LHR020SD-00E2 MY77J8 N             SE                           MI          A4SW    METHOD              A2540G                SOLID    =             47.7

Desired output:
                fldsampid            CLP_ID  sacode  matrix   etc...      CL           PO4        SO4        AG          AL           AS           B             V             Zn                etc...      ALK        ALKB      ALKC      SOLID    DOC       TOC        NO3
                LHR020GW-01E2                               N             WG                        <value>                <value>                <value>                <value>                <value>                <value>                <value>                <value>                <value>                <value>                <value>                <value>                <value>                <value>                <value>                <value>                <value>
                LHR020SD-00E2 MY77J8 N             SE                           NA          NA          NA          <value>                <value>                <value>                <value>                <value>                NA          <value>                NA          NA          NA          <value>                NA          NA          NA

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