[R] error in read.table on Mac OS 10 ... request for help

[Jason Boyd]

Hello,  
I'm a new user of R, and unsure of why I'm getting an 
error reading external files on my Mac OS 10 machine.  
I've read through posts that would seem related (and 'R 
Import/Export' and 'Introduction to R' as well as 
pertinent sections in V&R's 'Modern Applied Statistics 
with S-Plus') but to no avail.    If anyone has any 
suggestions, I'd be very grateful.  Here's the problem:

When I enter the command:

> idusc <- read.table(file = "/Users/Shared/
rm140_FULL/work/ioddupb.txt")

I get the message:

Error in file(file, "r") : cannot open file `/Users/Shared/
rm140_FULL/work/ioddupb.txt'

This is the correct path according to my Finder 
window's "path" tab (that is, as far as Users is a folder 
under /) and also according to the command line 
interface (shell).  I'm not sure why it can't read the file.  
I'm new to Unix systems also, so perhaps I've 
misunderstood paths (though I've been reading over 
Unix tutorials enough not to scare me). Other info:

1.  the file was created in simple text mode in Mac 
TextEdit and saved fixed width text format.

2.  when I save the file to another working directory 
under a different user, I also cannot read.table

3.  I checked the priveleges of the .txt file, they were 
Read & write for the owner and Read for everyone else 
so that would seem to take care of R being able to copy 
it.  

4.  I also tried read.fwf with the same type error 
message.

5.  The tutorials and examples as well as libraries all 
work fine, I can read data in the libraries, use add-on 
functions, and plot so it doesn't seem to be a problem 
with R itself.

I'm sure this is just a simple matter but I'm perplexed.  
Thanks for any suggestions,

Jason Boyd

graduate student
University of Georgia
College of Pharmacy
boydj at mail.rx.uga.edu

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