gsubfn (version 0.7)

read.pattern: Read file or text string using a regular expression to separate fields.

Description

Read file or text string using a regular expression to separate fields.

Usage

read.pattern(file, pattern, perl = FALSE, text, sep = "\01", fileEncoding = "", ...)

Arguments

file

See read.table.

pattern

A regular expression.

perl

logical. If TRUE then a perl style regular expression is expected.

text

See read.table.

sep

This should be a character that does not appear in any field. It is used for holding an intermediate form of the text.

fileEncoding

See read.table.

…

Further arguments passed to read.table.

Value

A data.frame.

Details

The parenthesized portions of the regular expression are extracted as fields.

See Also

See strapplyc, read.table.

Examples

# NOT RUN {
# 3 space-separated fields.  The first field may have embedded spaces.
Lines <- "this is the first field 1 2
more text 3 4
"
pat <- "^(.*) +(\\S+) +(\\S+)$"
read.pattern(text = Lines, pattern = pat, as.is = TRUE)

# 3 space-separated fields.  The last field may have embedded spaces.
Lines2 <- "1 2 this is the first field
3 4 more text
"
pat2 <- "^(\\S+) +(\\S+) +(.*)$"
read.pattern(text = Lines2, pattern = pat2, as.is = TRUE)
# }