Here is one way of reading in your data: > input <- readLines(textConnection("###---------Start of > record---------------------- + + Name: John + Height: 170cm + Weight: 70kg + Age: 30 + + Status: Married + Children: 2 + + Employment: Engineer + + ###---------End of record-----------------------")) > closeAllConnections() > result <- list() > recordNo <- 1 > for (i in input){ + if (nchar(i) == 0) next + if (length(grep("Start of record", i)) != 0){ + # initialize next element of the list + result[[recordNo]] <- c(Name=NA, Height=NA, Weight=NA, + Age=NA, Status=NA, Children=NA) + + } + else if (length(grep("End of record", i)) != 0) recordNo <- recordNo + 1 + else { + # follow assumes you have consistent naming with ":" terminating data + # if not, add some error checking code + name <- sub("^(.*):.*", "\\1", i) + value <- sub(".*:\\s*(.*)", "\\1", i) + result[[recordNo]][name] <- value + } + } > > result [[1]] Name Height Weight Age Status Children Employment "John" "170cm" "70kg" "30" "Married" "2" "Engineer"
> On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 8:45 AM, Daren Tan <darenta...@gmail.com> wrote: > I am given a text file of records to be converted into a table format. > I have searched related topics or packages, but can't find any similar > cases. Please help. > > Sample record is given below. Take note the last element doesn't have > a semi colon. > > ###---------Start of record---------------------- > > Name : John > Height: 170cm > Weight : 70kg > Age: 30 > > Status: Married > Children: 2 > > Employment Engineer > > ###---------End of record----------------------- > > Table format should have this header > Name Height Weight Age Status Children Employment > > ______________________________________________ > 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. > -- Jim Holtman Cincinnati, OH +1 513 646 9390 What is the problem that you are trying to solve? ______________________________________________ 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.