Hi Scott:
On Apr 13, 2012, at 1:45 PM, Waichler, Scott R wrote:

> Hi, I've read up on readBin() and chapter 6 in the R Data Import/Export 
> manual, but I still can't read a binary file.  Here is how the creator of the 
> file described the code that would be needed in Fortran:
> 
> "Every record has a return in fortran.  The length of each record is nx*ny*4. 
>  To read you would use the following:
> 
> nlayx = nx*ny*4
> do iz=1,nz,4
> read(binary file) var(1:nlayx)
> enddo
> nrest=mod(nx*ny*nz,nlayx)
> read(binary file) var(1:nrest)"
> 
> The first value in the file should be 0.05, and all of the data values are 
> real.  Here is what I get (with similar answers using double):
> 
>> v<-readBin("plotb.251", numeric(), size=4, n=1)
>> v
> [1] 1.614296e-39
> 
>> v<-readBin("plotb.251", numeric(), size=4, n=1, endian="swap")
>> v
> [1] 1.359775e-38
> 
> Platform is Intel Linux.  How can I read the file described above?


The creator of the file left out the "open" statement and the defaults for 
binary files in the compiler s/he used.  This is just a guess, but some 
Fortrans when writing "binary" files also include the record length in each 
record.  That would throw off a strict binary read.

Again, just a guess, but I have seen this before.  Don't know enough abut 
readBin to see if you can get the result of reading the first record in Hex or 
binary, but that might tell you what is going on.

-Roy M.  

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