I have a comma separated data file with no carriage returns and what
I'd like to do is
1. read the data as a block text
2. search for the string that starts each record "record_start", and
replace this with a carriage return. Replace will do, or just add a
carriage return before it. The string is the same for each record, but
it is enclosed in double quote marks in the file.
3. Write the results out as a csv file.
Let's say file.text looked like this:
"record_start", "data item 1", "data item 2", "record_start", "data
item 3", "data item 4"
and I wanted:
,"data item 1", "data item 2",
"data item 3", "data item 4"
text <- readLines("file.txt",encoding="UTF-8")
text <- gsub("record_start", "/n", text)
write.csv(text, "file2.csv")
This gives me "/n" in the text file, enclosed in the double quotes
that were there in the file around record_start already. Even if the
double quotes weren't there though, I'm still not sure this would
work. (BTW, I can live with the first incorrect comma in the output
file because I can just remove it manually.)
Can anyone suggest a solution?
Thank you,
Thomas Chesney
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