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data input

Syntax

read.table(file=, header=FALSE, sep="", row.names,
        col.names, as.is=FALSE, na.strings="NA", skip=0)

Arguments

file the name of the file which the data are to be read from. Each row of the table appears as one line of the file.
header a logical value indicating whether the file contains the names of the variables as its first line.
sep the field separator character. Values on each line of the file are separated by this character.
row.names a vector of row names. This can be a vector giving the actual row names, or a single number giving the column of the table which contains the row names, or character string giving the name of the table column containing the row names.
col.names a vector of optional names for the variables. The default is to use "V" followed by the column number
as.is the default behavior of read.table is to convert character and logical variables to factors. Setting as.is=TRUE inhibits this conversion and variables retain the natural types.
na.strings a vector strings which are to be interpreted as NA values.
skip the number of lines of the data file to skip before beginning to read data.

Value

A data frame containing a representation of the data in the file. This function is the principal means of reading tabular data into R.

See Also

scan, data.frame.