Dear R-developers, In read.table() the argument |colClasses = "NULL" can be used to skip columns and col.names to name the variables. The first time I tried to skip columns, I naively thought that /first/ the "NULL"-columns are skipped, /then/ you name only the remaining columns actually specified. Therefore, I did not provide names (i.e. "NULL") for the (large) number of columns skipped. When I got the warning message, "Error in read.table(file = file, header = header, sep = sep, quote = quote, : more columns than column names", I realized that I have to provide col.names also for the columns skipped. Now I wonder if it might be an idea to add a sentence in the help text for colnames (and maybe for colClasses) that you need to provide colnames = "NULL", for variables with colClasses = "NULL". Well, just a thought. I take the opportunity to thank you all for your excellent work with R! Best regards, Henrik | -- Henrik P?rn Centre for Conservation Biology Department of Biology Norwegian University of Science and Technology NO-7491 Trondheim Norway Office: +47 73596285 Fax: +47 73596100 Mobile: +47 90989255 E-mail: henrik.parn at bio.ntnu.no