CODEWITHSUNDEEP
rfreadreadr
topbyom
topbyom

Reputation: 3

How to use fread or read_delim in R on characters with no linebreak

I have several .txt files which need to be imported to R as dataframes for some data analysis. One of these files has no EOL in any form, so I'm left wondering how I would go about to import that.

\"A\";\"B\";\"C\";\"D\";\"D\";\"E\";\"F\";\"G\";\"H\";\"I\";\"J\";\"K\";\"L\";\"M\";\"N\";\"O\";\"P\";\"Q\";\"R\";\"S\";\"T\";\"U\";\"V\"\"1\";4;\"55-555-5555-555\";1234-56-78;\"111\";1510;5;1234-12-17;12345.1234512345;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA\"2\";6;\"22-222-2222-222\";5678-56-78;\"222\";2051;0;NA;0;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA

This is how the first ~500 characters of that .txt file look like. The EOL would need to be placed like this:

\"A\";\"B\";\"C\";\"D\";\"D\";\"E\";\"F\";\"G\";\"H\";\"I\";\"J\";\"K\";\"L\";\"M\";\"N\";\"O\";\"P\";\"Q\";\"R\";\"S\";\"T\";\"U\";\"V\"

\"1\";4;\"55-555-5555-555\";1234-56-78;\"111\";1510;5;1234-12-17;12345.1234512345;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA

\"2\";6;\"22-222-2222-222\";5678-56-78;\"222\";2051;0;NA;0;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA

Normally I would just gsub a "\n" to the places I need it to be, but there is no reoccurring string at the places where I would place a \n, so I don't think that gsub would work in this instance.

Seeing how the missing values are clearly indicated with NA, is there a function similar to read_delim that has a "col_number = x" argument? Like the first x values are the headers, the next x values are the values of the first row and so on and so forth?

If it changes anything, these .txt files are rather big (>300mb).

Big thank you to Julian_Hn. Works like a charm.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 236

Answers (1)

Julian_Hn
Julian_Hn

Reputation: 2141

I would probably just read this in as a vector and then reformat as matrix with the number of columns you know are in the dataset. This essentially does what you want

str <- "\"A\";\"B\";\"C\";\"D\";\"D\";\"E\";\"F\";\"G\";\"H\";\"I\";\"J\";\"K\";\"L\";\"M\";\"N\";\"O\";\"P\";\"Q\";\"R\";\"S\";\"T\";\"U\";\"V\";\"1\";4;\"55-555-5555-555\";1234-56-78;\"111\";1510;5;1234-12-17;12345.1234512345;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;\"2\";6;\"22-222-2222-222\";5678-56-78;\"222\";2051;0;NA;0;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA;NA"

vec <- strsplit(str,";")[[1]]
//EDIT: add byrow = T To stay in the right format. Thanks Yuriy
table <- matrix(vec,ncol=23,nrow=3, byrow = T)
df <- as.data.frame(table)

Upvotes: 1

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