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rread.table

Is there a problem with read.table when using # as seperator?

I'm trying to read in a text file (via read.table()) which looks like this:

1#2#3
4#5#6
7#8#9

The "#" should be used as the field's seperator.

My code:

test_data <- read.table("a_test_file.csv", sep= "#")

I'm only able to read in the first column (the values 1,4,7). Is there something I don't see or any ideas concerning a workaround?

Edit: I just realize that # is used to insert coments which are not treated as code text. Could it be that this sign is kind of 'locked' for any other purposes than creating coments?

Solution

  • Set comment.char to something else, e.g.:

    test_data <- read.table("a_test_file.csv", sep = "#", comment.char = "")