Its not clear what the result would be but you may be able to use read.table. Try this:
Lines <- "19 c:/data/WF-100/2008/20080911/trk/20080911.013115.007.17.txt 10 s name of program that wrote this file trkplt name of program that wrote this file 10 GORDON machine that generated this file machine that generated this file 10 3.7 version of program 10 3.6 version of this data file 10 5.81 version of Universal Library 10 20081121.145730 when this file was written 10 Windows_XP operating system used operating system used * * radar characteristics 11 WF-100 11 20000000 A/D rate, samples/second 11 7.5 bin width, m 11 800 nominal PRF, Hz 11 0.25 nominal pulse width, microsec 11 0 tuning, volts 11 3.19779 nominal wave length, cm" DF <- read.table(textConnection(Lines), fill = TRUE) DF2 <- with(DF, na.omit(data.frame(V1, V2 = as.numeric(V2), V3 = do.call(paste, DF[-(1:2)])))) You may need to remove the na.omit if you really do need those rows and make other changes but that at least gives the idea. On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 2:03 PM, Titan8883 <jpla...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hi all, > > I am a new graduate student who is also new to R. I am ok with the basics, > but the problem I am having right now seems beyond what I can do..so I am > looking for advice. I am trying to pull data from flat ASCII files, but they > do not have a "nice" structure so a simple "read.table" doesn't work. An > example first half of a data file is below: > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > 19 c:/data/WF-100/2008/20080911/trk/20080911.013115.007.17.txt > 10 s name of program that wrote this file trkplt name of program that > wrote this file > 10 GORDON machine that generated this file machine that generated this > file > 10 3.7 version of program > 10 3.6 version of this data file > 10 5.81 version of Universal Library > 10 20081121.145730 when this file was written > 10 Windows_XP operating system used operating system used > * > * radar characteristics > 11 WF-100 > 11 20000000 A/D rate, samples/second > 11 7.5 bin width, m > 11 800 nominal PRF, Hz > 11 0.25 nominal pulse width, microsec > 11 0 tuning, volts > 11 3.19779 nominal wave length, cm > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > ..the file goes on from there... > > How would I go about getting this data into some kind of useful format? This > is one of about 1000 files I will need to go through. I would ideally like > to get these into a format with each data file as a row with columns for the > various values with the description text removed(version of program, file > version, tuning volts, etc...). > > I'm not looking for a cut and paste answer, but perhaps some direction on > where I should start. I have only done basic .csv, table, and line inputs up > until now. > > Thanks for any advice > -- > View this message in context: > http://www.nabble.com/Trouble-pulling-data-from-a-messy-ACII-file...-tp21059239p21059239.html > Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > 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@r-project.org mailing list 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.