[R] 2.7.0 breaks read.table

[Ido M. Tamir]

Hi,
yes a bold statement, but I get different behaviour
from 2.6.2 and 2.7.0 in read.table, and I don't find
any documentation in http://cran.r-project.org/src/base/NEWS.

A file like (space delimited):
foo	+	.
bar	-	.

2.7.0:
> tab <- read.table("test.txt",as.is=TRUE)
> tab
    V1 V2 V3
1 foom  0  0
2  bar  0  0

while until now and on 2.6.2
> tab <- read.table("test.txt",as.is=TRUE)
> tab
    V1 V2 V3
1 foom  +  .
2  bar  -  .

the really strange thing I just saw when
preparing the simplified test case - I normally use
tab delimited files (biological gff files by the way
where +/- and . have some meaning).

on 2.7.0:
tab <- read.table("test.txt",sep="\t", as.is=TRUE)
> tab
        V1
1 foom + .
2  bar - .

so specifying the wrong separator brings up the
old correct behaviour.

best wishes,
ido

PS:
I hope I cancelled the first non-member mailing list post in time - I forgot 
the system:
> R.Version()
$platform
[1] "x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu"

$arch
[1] "x86_64"

$os
[1] "linux-gnu"

$system
[1] "x86_64, linux-gnu"

$status
[1] ""

$major
[1] "2"

$minor
[1] "7.0"

$year
[1] "2008"

$month
[1] "04"

$day
[1] "22"

$`svn rev`
[1] "45424"

$language
[1] "R"

$version.string
[1] "R version 2.7.0 (2008-04-22)"