R help - Oct 2003 - Search for a text string and write position related data to a file

Dear all,

I just started using R today. What I need to do is find a text string in a
(large) text file and than copy the some position related lines (or text) to an
other text file. Is this possible with R?

Example: Search string is: "Date"
write line of <search string> +0, +2, +6, +7, +8, +9
########################################
1 Report of measured data
2 -
3 Date: 01-10-03
4 
5 Time: 17:52:23
6 ------------
7 =====8 ++++++
9 x1=1.5
10 y1=2.9
11 x2=29
12 y2=704
..
..
552 Date: 01-10-03
553
554 Time: 18:04:11
555 ------------
556 =====557 ++++++
558 x1=1.1
559 y1=1.9
560 x2=35
561 y2=870
..
..
etc
########################################

The new text file must contain:
########################################
Date: 01-10-03
Time: 17:52:23
x1=1.5
y1=2.9
x2=29
y2=704
Date: 01-10-03
Time: 18:04:11
x1=1.1
y1=1.9
x2=35
y2=870
etc
########################################

Is this possible??

Kind Regards, Gerard


	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

"Karin & Gerard Preusting" <Karin at preusting.fol.nl>
writes:
> Dear all,
> 
> I just started using R today. What I need to do is find a text
> string in a (large) text file and than copy the some position
> related lines (or text) to an other text file. Is this possible with
> R?
It's hardly a typical R application, but it can be done using a fairly
straightforward while loop. See documentation for readLines,
writeLines, and grep. (On Unix-like systems, tools like awk or perl
will probably get the job done more quickly).

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Blegdamsvej 3  
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     2200 Cph. N   
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph: (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk)             FAX: (+45) 35327907