Hi,

The solution with lapply() should work; it seems that the problem was with the file name.
mylist <- lapply(a, read.table, header = TRUE, sep = '\n')
What is "a"? Is it an object containing a path+file name? Maybe not.
Second, I'm not sure sep should be "\n". I think "," would be better. Just a guess.

By the way, wouldn't it be easier if you put all the data in a single file? You could add a column with "state". Just my humble opinion.

Ivan


Le 1/18/2011 02:52, Simon Kiss a écrit :
readLines worked great Jim, thanks!
Simon Kiss
On 2011-01-17, at 7:44 PM, jim holtman wrote:

It sounds like you want to use 'readLines' and not 'read.table'

x<- readLines(textConnection("January 11, 2009
+ January 11, 2009
+ October 19, 2008
+ October 13, 2008
+ August 16, 2008
+ June 19, 2008
+ April 19, 2008
+ April 16, 2008
+ February 9, 2008
+ September 2, 2007"))
closeAllConnections()
x
[1] "January 11, 2009"  "January 11, 2009"  "October 19, 2008"
"October 13, 2008"  "August 16, 2008"
[6] "June 19, 2008"     "April 19, 2008"    "April 16, 2008"
"February 9, 2008"  "September 2, 2007"
What exactly are you going to do with the data after you read it in?

On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 6:22 PM, Simon Kiss<simonjk...@yahoo.ca>  wrote:
Dear jim,
Yes, it's true, the data are separated onto new lines as follows:
January 11, 2009
January 11, 2009
October 19, 2008
October 13, 2008
August 16, 2008
June 19, 2008
April 19, 2008
April 16, 2008
February 9, 2008
September 2, 2007

I tried your attempt and it didn't work either; it returned the error message:
Error in FUN(X[[1L]], ...) :
  'file' must be a character string or connection

On 2011-01-17, at 2:02 PM, jim holtman wrote:

try:

mylist<- lapply(a, read.table, header = TRUE, sep = '\n')

also is the separator really '\n' meaning a new-line?  What exactly
does the data look like?

On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 11:47 AM, Simon Kiss<simonjk...@yahoo.ca>  wrote:
Hello,
I'm trying to read in 50 text filess with dates as content to create a list of 
tables.

a is the list of filenames that need to be read in.

The following command returns the following error
mylist<-lapply(a, read.table(header=TRUE, sep="\n"))

Error in read.table(header = TRUE, sep = "\n") :
  element 1 is empty;
   the part of the args list of 'is.character' being evaluated was:
   (file)

Does anyone have any suggestions?
Yours, Simon Kiss
*********************************
Simon J. Kiss, PhD
Assistant Professor, Wilfrid Laurier University
73 George Street
Brantford, Ontario, Canada
N3T 2C9
Cell: +1 519 761 7606

______________________________________________
R-help@r-project.org mailing list
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PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.



--
Jim Holtman
Data Munger Guru

What is the problem that you are trying to solve?
*********************************
Simon J. Kiss, PhD
Assistant Professor, Wilfrid Laurier University
73 George Street
Brantford, Ontario, Canada
N3T 2C9
Cell: +1 519 761 7606













--
Jim Holtman
Data Munger Guru

What is the problem that you are trying to solve?
*********************************
Simon J. Kiss, PhD
Assistant Professor, Wilfrid Laurier University
73 George Street
Brantford, Ontario, Canada
N3T 2C9
Cell: +1 519 761 7606

______________________________________________
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.


--
Ivan CALANDRA
PhD Student
University of Hamburg
Biozentrum Grindel und Zoologisches Museum
Abt. Säugetiere
Martin-Luther-King-Platz 3
D-20146 Hamburg, GERMANY
+49(0)40 42838 6231
ivan.calan...@uni-hamburg.de

**********
http://www.for771.uni-bonn.de
http://webapp5.rrz.uni-hamburg.de/mammals/eng/1525_8_1.php

______________________________________________
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.

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