[R] help on readBin in R

jim holtman
Mon, 17 Apr 2017 02:33:06 -0000

If the file is not too large, just change the extension to '.txt' and
attach it.  Also include the code that you are using to read it in and
a definition of the what the data is; e.g., first two byte are
temperature, next four bytes are a station ID, ....

Here is an example of reading in a binary file and I know that the
'raw' output matches the bytes that are in the file:

> infile <- file("test.txt", 'rb')
>
> input <- readBin(infile, raw(), 100)
>
> input
  [1] 50 4b 03 04 14 00 04 00 08 00 47 95 90 4a 9f 00 7a a0 99 01 00
00 7a 08 00 00 13 00 75 00 5b 43 6f
 [34] 6e 74 65 6e 74 5f 54 79 70 65 73 5d 2e 78 6d 6c 53 44 60 00 a4
00 00 00 00 08 00 32 fa a9 3f 63 64
 [67] 60 69 11 61 60 60 30 00 62 10 f0 01 62 46 56 30 93 55 14 48 55
e8 cd 15 fe e5 cf a3 df 6c ab ed 66
[100] b1
>

here is the dump:

$ od -a -t x --endian=big test.txt
0000000   P   K etx eot dc4 nul eot nul  bs nul   G nak dle   J  us nul
               504b0304        14000400        08004795        904a9f00
0000020   z  sp  em soh nul nul   z  bs nul nul dc3 nul   u nul   [   C
               7aa09901        00007a08        00001300        75005b43
0000040   o   n   t   e   n   t   _   T   y   p   e   s   ]   .   x   m
               6f6e7465        6e745f54        79706573        5d2e786d

Jim Holtman
Data Munger Guru

What is the problem that you are trying to solve?
Tell me what you want to do, not how you want to do it.


On Sun, Apr 16, 2017 at 9:21 PM, Jeff Newmiller
<jdnewmil at dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
> The mailing list has tight restrictions on attachments, so your attachment
was not let through. Read the Posting Guide, and note that sometimes success
requires some extended understanding of how your mail software works, and we
probably don't know the details either. You might have success changing the
file extension or sending a link to the file on a file storage website like
Google Drive or Dropbox.
> --
> Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.
>
> On April 16, 2017 3:49:07 PM PDT, "M.M saifuddin"
<mmsaifuddin09 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>I need to view the attached  binary file. but can not read it, instead
>>am
>>getting very weird( i think garbage) numbers.
>>
>>The values are Temperature data so it should be somewhat in between 250
>>to
>>500.
>>
>>Can any altruist view it and give me the R code to view it.
>>
>>I am attaching the file. Please help me if you can.
>>
>>TIA
>>______________________________________________
>>R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
>>https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>>PLEASE do read the posting guide
>>http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>>and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.