R help - Mar 2010 - insert/copy skipped lines to output

Hello all,

I'd like some advise on this. When I read my files, I pass the argument, 
skip=6, to skip 6 lines of header information. After performing the 
desired calculations, I have the output. Now I want to copy the 6 lines 
of skipped information to the output.

What I've been doing so far is to use a shell script (i.e. the cat 
function)  to copy the header information to the output file. This means 
I need 2 additional files, namely a file containing the header 
information only, and the shell script to run the the function.

Is there a direct way to perform this in R?

The following forms the main component of my R script;

x <- as.matrix(read.table("file.txt",skip=6))
y <- x*2
write.table(y,"output.txt",row.names=FALSE,col.names=FALSE)


Thanks

Muhammad

Hallo,

have a look at the documentation of the different output functions
(write(),cat(),write.table()). Most of them have an argument like
"append". If you set this to TRUE, your command adds the lines you are
writing into the file to the lines already existent in that file. So if
you run this write() command first with your additional data (header
data) and then with the "real" data and append=TRUE, your information
ends up in the same file.


HTH
Jannis


Muhammad Rahiz schrieb:
> Hello all,
>
> I'd like some advise on this. When I read my files, I pass the 
> argument, skip=6, to skip 6 lines of header information. After 
> performing the desired calculations, I have the output. Now I want to 
> copy the 6 lines of skipped information to the output.
>
> What I've been doing so far is to use a shell script (i.e. the cat 
> function)  to copy the header information to the output file. This 
> means I need 2 additional files, namely a file containing the header 
> information only, and the shell script to run the the function.
>
> Is there a direct way to perform this in R?
>
> The following forms the main component of my R script;
>
> x <- as.matrix(read.table("file.txt",skip=6))
> y <- x*2
> write.table(y,"output.txt",row.names=FALSE,col.names=FALSE)
>
>
> Thanks
>
> Muhammad
>
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