Dear R-users,

I am struggling to directly read an "op.gz" file into R. NOAA kindly provides daily weather data on their FTP server for download. 


> sessionInfo()
R version 2.15.1 (2012-06-22)
Platform: x86_64-pc-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)
locale:
[1] LC_COLLATE=English_United Kingdom.1252  LC_CTYPE=English_United Kingdom.1252    LC_MONETARY=English_United Kingdom.1252
[4] LC_NUMERIC=C                            LC_TIME=English_United Kingdom.1252    
attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     
loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] tools_2.15.1

Here is the data set in question:
x <- read.csv(file="ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/gsod/2012/285880-99999-2012.op.gz", skip = 1, sep = "")

and "structure" returns some incomprehensible gibberish:

> str(x)
'data.frame':   70 obs. of  6 variables:
 $ X4àtYd...ÂÚ8.åWD...ëü.ïß.X.QTñVP..                                                                                                                      : Factor w/ 70 levels "\005~4èdŒÚíE\031y\020ÿíº\035JëïÒI˜Æí\021†BÆÌR{žYkv\035`“ì°a\017Z\021ÅsP’eÏhÞÇ""| __truncated__,..: 44 13 56 64 28 23 67 3 2 33 ...
 $ X.öoMýßT..Âº_...Öígß7.â..Tþ.üÔ.ª...5ÕJ...žíÕj.QÊ..ã.eÅƒÎGmòýçºg..a...Õæ.J..Å.ãsç.êŠ.û.ÊklsUDÙ.Š..âU...u1.zË.WÜ..x...3._..E.ò.ÊZD.ïoÚÇ.dvæ....òk.C.y...8h: Factor w/ 41 levels "","\025ç\016\vÎ²i;§4ƒñ\002\001P–á\0025¶•âÆ{ÐÄ™¹=Â¤4&ðw\\\\Q­´›­Ü´\"hnÅ™‰I¨ÅŠb*ªš\035b\b>6ÆÙ$W!ÖËR=¨\022“Pqˆ[»j\004$TÄ•3²*Ó±%à­N”›\"| __truncated__,..: 1 1 1 39 1 1 1 8 1 5 ...
 $ X.iŒ.yÐû..ý2.h..ûÉ7.ãJ.3k..jLm...Q..uYÓJä.K.zkU.8.öÖ..Y.7.3...üÊîA.Ê.3ûÄ..Z..5...âš.                                                                    : Factor w/ 29 levels "","\001qË^+nê1",..: 1 1 1 4 1 1 1 14 1 6 ...
 $ X.îFd.m.Š..v.                                                                                                                                           : Factor w/ 17 levels ""," ´SL\ašÜÝ°\035d)‚¼$íZÆ¼ò¶îßJÉ‚äþ†B6å\006%5l[‘¼š\025a\024ñï+gT+3",..: 1 1 1 16 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
 $ ÿA..E.ŸJkEZ.ÐÊ.á.ë.......œ.z..Â.z..œ..òË.ÙÖãg.ö                                                                                                         : Factor w/ 8 levels "","\001S\177¿\017iSÞÖiÓÈ#\017\"UgË:i´í\016pÝ\031UÄéD""| __truncated__,..: 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
 $ X..oðçnPÔoÎWõj.éÔ..B..Âÿë.Qêù...ø      


While I can manually open and read the op.gz file in a text editor, read.csv() or read.table() the imported file is simply unreadable.

How can I best get the job done? Any pointers, suggestions, ideas most welcome!!

Thanks in advance!

Bernd

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