R help - Apr 2006 - read dataset with blank space as missing value

Dear R users

As specified in the subject, a dataset as following:

  56  a 1  2  3  4  5  6  7
234  b 2  3  5  .  8  1  9
457  b 2      4  6  7  3  3        <--the blank space should be missing value
658  f  2  3  5  6  8  1  9

the blank space at thethird row should be missing value. how should I
deal with this. fill=T will move "4" to the blank space which is not
desired.

thank you

yong

There are a number of approaches:

1. This will identify the line numbers of the short lines
and then you can fix them up by hand.

k <- count.fields(myfile)
which(k < max(k))

2.  If you can assume that 4 spaces, say, represents a missing
value then:

L <- readLines(myfile)
L <- gsub("    ", " . ", L)
read.table(textConnection(L), na.strings = ".")



On 4/20/06, Yong Wang <wangyong1 at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Dear R users
>
> As specified in the subject, a dataset as following:
>
>  56  a 1  2  3  4  5  6  7
> 234  b 2  3  5  .  8  1  9
> 457  b 2      4  6  7  3  3        <--the blank space should be missing
value
> 658  f  2  3  5  6  8  1  9
>
> the blank space at thethird row should be missing value. how should I
> deal with this. fill=T will move "4" to the blank space which is
not
> desired.
>
> thank you
>
> yong
>
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