R help - Sep 2007 - A weird observation from using read.table

Hi Everyone, 

Recently I got puzzled by the function read.table,
even though I have used it for a long time. 

I have such a file (tmp.txt, 2 rows and 3 columns,
with a space among columns):

1 2'-PDE 4
2 3'-PDE 5

if I do:
a = read.table("tmp.txt", header = F, quote = "")
a
  V1     V2 V3
1  1 2'-PDE  4
2  2 3'-PDE  5

Everything is fine. 

However, if I do:
a = read.table("tmp.txt", header = F)
a
  V1     V2 V3
1  2 3'-PDE  5
2  1 2'-PDE  4
3  2 3'-PDE  5

I know it is related to the "quote" as the default
includes '. But how can it get one more row in the
file? Thank you very much for your help in advance!

Jun

Take a look at ?scan.

There is an explanation for the doubling of the string

Bart



Jun Ding wrote:
> 
> Hi Everyone, 
> 
> Recently I got puzzled by the function read.table,
> even though I have used it for a long time. 
> 
> I have such a file (tmp.txt, 2 rows and 3 columns,
> with a space among columns):
> 
> 1 2'-PDE 4
> 2 3'-PDE 5
> 
> if I do:
> a = read.table("tmp.txt", header = F, quote = "")
> a
>   V1     V2 V3
> 1  1 2'-PDE  4
> 2  2 3'-PDE  5
> 
> Everything is fine. 
> 
> However, if I do:
> a = read.table("tmp.txt", header = F)
> a
>   V1     V2 V3
> 1  2 3'-PDE  5
> 2  1 2'-PDE  4
> 3  2 3'-PDE  5
> 
> I know it is related to the "quote" as the default
> includes '. But how can it get one more row in the
> file? Thank you very much for your help in advance!
> 
> Jun
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at 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.
> 
> 
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Hi Everyone, 

Recently I got puzzled by the function read.table,
even though I have used it for a long time. 

I have such a file (tmp.txt, 2 rows and 3 columns,
with a space among columns):

1 2'-PDE 4
2 3'-PDE 5

if I do:
a = read.table("tmp.txt", header = F, quote = "")
a
  V1     V2 V3
1  1 2'-PDE  4
2  2 3'-PDE  5

Everything is fine. 

However, if I do:
a = read.table("tmp.txt", header = F)
a
  V1     V2 V3
1  2 3'-PDE  5
2  1 2'-PDE  4
3  2 3'-PDE  5

I know it is related to the "quote" as the default
includes '. But how can it get one more row in the
file? Thank you very much for your help in advance!

Jun