How to parse the blank columns in read.table?

Question

 dat="mpg cyl  disp  hp drat    wt  qsec vs am gear carb
       21.0   6 160.0 110 3.90 2.620 16.46  0  1    4    4
       21.0   6 160.0 110 3.90 2.875 17.02  0  1    4    4
       22.8   4 108.0  93 3.85 2.320 18.61  1  1    4    1
       21.4   6 258.0 110 3.08 3.215 19.44  1  0    3    1
                                                         2"

I need it as below, see row 6?

    >  read.table(text=dat,fill=T,header=TRUE)
   mpg cyl disp  hp drat    wt  qsec vs am gear carb
1 21.0   6  160 110 3.90 2.620 16.46  0  1    4    4
2 21.0   6  160 110 3.90 2.875 17.02  0  1    4    4
3 22.8   4  108  93 3.85 2.320 18.61  1  1    4    1
4 21.4   6  258 110 3.08 3.215 19.44  1  0    3    1
5  2.0  NA   NA  NA   NA    NA    NA NA NA   NA   NA


>  read.table(text=dat,fill=T,header=TRUE)
   mpg cyl disp  hp drat    wt  qsec vs am gear carb
1 21.0   6  160 110 3.90 2.620 16.46  0  1    4    4
2 21.0   6  160 110 3.90 2.875 17.02  0  1    4    4
3 22.8   4  108  93 3.85 2.320 18.61  1  1    4    1
4 21.4   6  258 110 3.08 3.215 19.44  1  0    3    1
5  NA   NA  NA   NA    NA    NA NA NA   NA   NA    2

Could you possibly be dealing with a fixed width format file? If so, use `read.fwf`. — Roland, Jan 10 '14 at 10:41
In your `read.table` you don't specify any `sep` that's why the 6th line starts from the 1st column. — Julien Navarre, Jan 10 '14 at 11:50

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Jan 18 '14 at 12:17

1

I solved it myself.

read.fwf(file=textConnection(dat),fill=TRUE,skip=1,widths=c(12,4,6,4,5,6,6,3,3,5,5)) -> r

unlist(strsplit(y,split="\\s+")) -> colnames(y)   
unlist(strsplit(y,split="\\s+")) -> colnames(r)

edited Jan 18 '14 at 12:17

Shahbaz

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answered Jan 10 '14 at 13:34

showkey

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How to parse the blank columns in read.table?

1 Answers1