On Nov 18, 2008, at 12:57 AM, kayj wrote:
>
> I have a huge txt file and I only want to get out of it column 3
> and 7.
> I tried to read the whole file and then extract the two columns, but
> I ran
> into a memory problem since the file is huge.
>
> Is it possible just to tell R to read these two columns without
> reading the
> whole file?
?read.table # read the documentation for colClasses carefully
something along the lines of:
in.frame <- read.table(file = "c//folder/filename.ext", colClasses
=
c("NULL","NULL","character", "NULL",
"NULL","NULL","NULL","character"))
You need to add as many NULLs as there are additional records in the
longest input line. It may be helpful to first run count.fields(). You
might get a more specific answer if you defined "huge". You should
also look at the FAQ regarding memory issues. There are also database
oriented solutions available.
--
David Winsemius
>
>
> Thanks
>
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