R help - Oct 1999 - Using metric scaling

I want to enter a symmetric matrix containing distances for use in the
cmdscale() metric scaling function. The matrix currently sits on a file in
lower triangular form looking like this:

   1 AWANUI RIVER         .000
   2 BLENHEIM             .510   .000
   3 COLLINGWOOD          .510   .109   .000
   4 FOXTON               .510   .141   .141   .000
   5 GISBORNE             .549   .549   .549   .549   .000
   6 HAROTO BAY           .510   .120   .120   .141   .549   .000
   7 HOUHORA HARBOUR      .165   .510   .510   .510   .549   .510   .000
   8 PORANGAHAU           .549   .549   .549   .549   .072   .549   .549
.000
   9 RAWENE               .510   .314   .314   .314   .549   .314   .510
.549
  10 LAKE ROTOITI         .510   .314   .314   .314   .549   .314   .510
.549
 
and so on down to

  38 WHANGANUI INLET      .788   .788   .788   .788   .788   .788   .788
.788

then beginning again with the next 8 columns

   9 RAWENE               .000
  10 LAKE ROTOITI         .223   .000
  11 LAKE ROTORUA         .223   .084   .000

and so on.

Can some tolerant person let me know the way to enter this into a distance
or symmetric matrix structure in R?

Also, in the 'eurodist' example given with cmdscale.html the plot gives
the
point labels, but no symbol showing the location of the point. Is it
possible to specify a plotting symbol as well as the label?

Regards,

Murray Jorgensen




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Prof B. Ripley wrote:
>With that sort of structure it will be painful.  I assume some extra
>line wrapping occurred in transit?  If so, here is my best idea:
>
>t1 <- read.fwf("dist.dat", width=c(4, 22, rep(7, 8)))
> . . .
Actually I am reading an output file of a program that I do not have.

I am using R 0.64.2 under Windows 95. I soon found out that read.fwf()
requires Perl, which I did not have installed. So I downloaded ActivePerl
from http://www.activestate.com/ActivePerl/ and installed it, as well as 
DCOM for Windows 95 (required for Windows 95 machines only) - downloadable
from http://www.microsoft.com/com/dcom/dcom95/dcom1_3.asp. 

The install was straightforward (I put DCOM on first, which seemed
logical). However I still have trouble with read.fwf(). At first I thought
that it was due to spaces in my directory names, but it persisted after I
fixed this up. My complete session follows:

[Previously saved workspace restored]
> t1 <- read.fwf("d:/maj/consulting/Mark Stevens/matrix.txt",
width=c(4,
22, rep(7, 8)))
Error: "scan" can't open file
> t1 <- read.fwf("d:/maj/consulting/MarkStevens/matrix.txt",
width=c(4, 22,
rep(7, 8)))
Error: "scan" can't open file
> ss  <- scan("d:/maj/consulting/MarkStevens/matrix.txt")
Error: "scan" expected a real got
"AWANUI"
> 
> t1 <- read.fwf("d:/maj/consulting/MarkStevens/matrix.txt",
width=c(4, 22,
rep(7, 8)))
Error: "scan" can't open file
> t1 <- read.fwf("d:\maj\consulting\MarkStevens\matrix.txt",
width=c(4, 22,
rep(7, 8)))
Error: "scan" can't open file
> 
> t1 <- read.fwf("d:/maj/Consulting/MarkStevens/matrix.txt",
width=c(4, 22,
rep(7, 8)))
Error: "scan" can't open file
> t1 <- read.fwf("D:/maj/Consulting/MarkStevens/matrix.txt",
width=c(4, 22,
rep(7, 8)))
Error: "scan" can't open file
> t1 <- read.fwf("d:\\maj\\Consulting\\MarkStevens\\matrix.txt",
width=c(4,
22, rep(7, 8)))
Error: "scan" can't open file



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r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html
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(in the "body", not the subject !)  To: r-help-request at
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