[R] a quick ? on using read.table()

[Yong Wang]

Dear all

I have a data set like following
***********************
name  ticker price	# how to specify attributes for differet colums

a     ta     1
a     ta     1
a     ta     1
name ticker price 	# the extra headline is a problem
a     ta     1
a     ta     1
b            2
b            2
b            2
b            2
b            2
c     tc     3
c     tc     3
name ticker price
c     tc     3
c     tc     3
c     tc     3
**************************
all columns are read in as "factor", if without specifying parameters in 
read.table()
so how can I use read.table() function and its parameter
to conveniently do following things in ONE action

if can not, answer for the first and second question is especially 
appreciated.
I did not figure  out how to use "as.is"

1) specify the each row with different addtribute, e.g., the first colum 
as"character"
second col as "factor", third one as "numeric"
2) remove extra headlines
3) remove rows with blanks

thank you
regards