R help - Mar 2003 - Help with reading data

everytime i try to read in data i get the following error:

Error in scan(file = file, what = what, sep = sep, quote = quote, dec = dec,  : 
        line 3 did not have 5 elements


it was my understanding it wasn''t necessary to specifiy all defaults.
The bizarre thing is this error comes from using read.table.

When I use scan I get the following error:

Error in scan("tree.dat") : "scan" expected a real, got
"<!DOCTYPE"


I have checked my work directory and the file i'',m trying to read is
there.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance

Nirvan



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On Fri, 14 Mar 2003, Nirvan Sunderam wrote:
> 
> everytime i try to read in data i get the following error:
> 
> Error in scan(file = file, what = what, sep = sep, quote = quote, dec =
dec,  :
>         line 3 did not have 5 elements
> 
> 
> it was my understanding it wasn't necessary to specifiy all defaults.
The bizarre thing is this error comes from using read.table.
> When I use scan I get the following error:
> 
> Error in scan("tree.dat") : "scan" expected a real, got
"<!DOCTYPE"
You appear to be trying to read an HTML (or perhaps XML or SGML) file.  
That's unlikely to be in any of the formats R can read.  Have you
downloaded this from the web and saved in the wrong format?

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

Hi!
'The bizarre thing is this error comes from using read.table'
Not bizarre, read.table is a R-function  built with the R-function scan 
(you can look  the code simply  by command read.table at the R-prompt).
 'Error in scan("tree.dat") : "scan" expected a real,
got "<!DOCTYPE"'
Obviously read.table is not able to read every data file (please look  at 
the help for read.table and at doc/Manual/R-data.pdf).
"DOCTYPE" is something by MS-Word file, instead to make use of scan
(more
fast) or read.table you need 
a flat ASCII file (i.e., trivial, you make a data sheet with some 
spreadsheet, Excell, and save it as separeted by tab .txt)

A.S.

----------------------------

Alessandro Semeria 
Models and Simulations Laboratory
The Environment Research Center - Montecatini (Edison Group), 
Via Ciro Menotti 48,
48023 Marina di Ravenna (RA), Italy
Tel. +39 544 536811
Fax. +39 544 538663
E-mail: asemeria at cramont.it