R help - Oct 2010 - How do I read multiple rows of different lengths?

Hi,
I have a data file with hundreds of rows, with every first, second, third,
and fourth line representing a set of numbers for row names x, y, fit, and
residuals, respectively. However, any given group of these lines might be
from 10 to 20000 values long. 

When I try 
fits=read.delim2("test")
Error in read.table(file = file, header = header, sep = sep, quote = quote, 
: 
  more columns than column names

When I try
fits=readLines("test")
it reads the data, but doesn't separate it into
values:
> head(fits)
[1] "1\t30049\t30204\tsegment_4\t35\t."
[2]
"bp\t30049\t30065\t30071\t30114\t30119\t30121\t30126\t30130\t30132\t30134\t30137\t30146\t30151\t30165\t30174\t30204\t"
[3] "origScore\t4\t1\t1\t2\t1\t1\t2\t2\t2\t6\t5\t2\t1\t2\t1\t2\t"
[4]
"fit\t2.15669\t2.20976\t2.22514\t2.25842\t2.25336\t2.25082\t2.24318\t2.23576\t2.23161\t2.22718\t2.21999\t2.19465\t2.17818\t2.12334\t2.08169\t1.91129\t"
[5]
"residuals\t1.84331\t-1.20976\t-1.22514\t-0.258424\t-1.25336\t-1.25082\t-0.243182\t-0.235756\t-0.23161\t3.77282\t2.78001\t-0.194654\t-1.17818\t-0.123344\t-1.08169\t0.0887071\t"

Can anyone help me do this?
Thanks,
Sean
 
 
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Hi,
I have a data file with hundreds of rows, with every first, second, third,
and fourth line representing a set of numbers for row names x, y, fit, and
residuals, respectively. However, any given group of these lines might be
from 10 to 20000 values long. 

When I try 
fits=read.delim2("test")
Error in read.table(file = file, header = header, sep = sep, quote = quote, 
: 
  more columns than column names

When I try
fits=readLines("test")
it reads the data, but doesn't separate it into
values:
> head(fits)
[1] "1\t30049\t30204\tsegment_4\t35\t."
[2]
"bp\t30049\t30065\t30071\t30114\t30119\t30121\t30126\t30130\t30132\t30134\t30137\t30146\t30151\t30165\t30174\t30204\t"
[3] "origScore\t4\t1\t1\t2\t1\t1\t2\t2\t2\t6\t5\t2\t1\t2\t1\t2\t"
[4]
"fit\t2.15669\t2.20976\t2.22514\t2.25842\t2.25336\t2.25082\t2.24318\t2.23576\t2.23161\t2.22718\t2.21999\t2.19465\t2.17818\t2.12334\t2.08169\t1.91129\t"
[5]
"residuals\t1.84331\t-1.20976\t-1.22514\t-0.258424\t-1.25336\t-1.25082\t-0.243182\t-0.235756\t-0.23161\t3.77282\t2.78001\t-0.194654\t-1.17818\t-0.123344\t-1.08169\t0.0887071\t"

Can anyone help me do this?
Thanks,
Sean
 
 
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On Oct 27, 2010, at 3:27 PM, smcguffee wrote:
>
> Actually, I take that back, this is only reading in 18 values at the  
> most in
> a list, but some lists should be over 200 values in length...
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>
> ______________________________________________
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David Winsemius, MD
West Hartford, CT

On Oct 27, 2010, at 3:27 PM, smcguffee wrote:
>
> Actually, I take that back, this is only reading in 18 values at the  
> most in
> a list, but some lists should be over 200 values in length...
I think the read.table and cousins read in some modest fraction of the  
data

Probably need to either preprocess with  readLines if you want an  
exact match of width or maybe take a guess with  ... ,  colClasses =  
rep("numeric", 250)  to create a sufficiently wide set of columns to  
hold everything.


-- 

David Winsemius, MD
West Hartford, CT