R help - Jan 2007 - Read multiple text files and combine into single file?

Hi everyone!

I have 1000 text files that contain data in a standard format separated by 
semi colons. However, each file also has single header (first) and footer 
(final) lines.  The text files are all named with a sample number, which do 
not follow a pattern.  I need to delete the header and footer lines and 
combine all files into a single (or possibly several) large files.
Does anyone know how this could be done automatically using R?

best regards,

Ton

I think something like this should work:

outFile <- file("output.txt", "w")
for (i in ListOfFileNames){
    x <- readLines(i)
    writeLines(x[2:(length(x)-1)], outFile)
}
close(outFile)



On 1/30/07, pif pif <pifbugs at hotmail.fr> wrote:
> Hi everyone!
>
> I have 1000 text files that contain data in a standard format separated by
> semi colons. However, each file also has single header (first) and footer
> (final) lines.  The text files are all named with a sample number, which do
> not follow a pattern.  I need to delete the header and footer lines and
> combine all files into a single (or possibly several) large files.
> Does anyone know how this could be done automatically using R?
>
> best regards,
>
> Ton
>
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> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>

-- 
Jim Holtman
Cincinnati, OH
+1 513 646 9390

What is the problem you are trying to solve?