Hi. Thanks to all who offered a solution with my problem with scan. I read the helps pages but I did not understand the definition of 'stream'. if I say: my.file <- "c:/schrumpft.dat" x <- scan(my.file,nline=1,what=...) scan reads one line and closes the file but my.file <- open(my.file,open="r") x <- scan(my.file,nline=1,..._ then my.file is an already open file, i.e. a 'stream' and scan does not close it after reading a line and keep on reading lines on successive calls. I know I am old and not up to date on computerese but I think that this behavior could be better explained in scan() help. Thanks again to all those who offered help. . R. Heberto Ghezzo Ph.D. Meakins-Christie Labs McGill University Montreal - Canada heberto at meakins.lan.mcgill.ca -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._