[R] read.csv, header=TRUE but skip the first line

[Mark Knecht]

On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 2:18 PM, Peter Dalgaard<p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk> wrote:
> Mark Knecht wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>   Complete newbie to R here. Just getting started reading manuals and
>> playing with data.
>>
>>   I've managed to successfully get my *.csv files into R, however I
>> have to use header=FALSE because the real header starts in line #2.
>> The file format looks like:
>>
>> PORTFOLIO EQUITY TABLE
>>
>> TRADE,MARK-SYS,DATE/TIME,PL/SIZE,PS METHOD,POS SIZE,POS
>> PL,DRAWDOWN,DRAWDOWN(%),EQUITY
>>
>> 1,1,1/8/2004 12:57:00 PM,124.00,As Given,1,124.00,0.00,0,"10,124.00"
>> 2,1,1/14/2004 9:03:00 AM,-86.00,As Given,1,-86.00,86.00,0.849,"10,038.00"
>> 3,1,1/14/2004 11:51:00 AM,-226.00,As
>> Given,1,-226.00,312.00,3.082,"9,812.00"
>> 4,1,1/15/2004 12:57:00 PM,134.00,As Given,1,134.00,178.00,1.758,"9,946.00"
>>
>> where the words "PORTFOLIO EQUITY TABLE" make up line 1, the rest of
>> the text is on line 2, and then the lines starting with numbers are
>> the real data. (Spaces added by me for email clarity only.)
>>
>> If I remove the first line by hand then I can use header=TRUE and
>> things work correctly, but it's not practical for me to remove the
>> first line by hand on all these files every day.
>>
>> I'd like to understand how I can do the read.csv but skip the first
>> line. Possibly read the file, delete the first line and then send it
>> to read.csv, or some other way?
>
> Does it not work to set skip=1 in read.csv??
>
> (With names like that, you might want check.names=FALSE too)
>
> --
>   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Øster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B
>  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K
>  (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph:  (+45) 35327918
> ~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk)              FAX: (+45) 35327907
>

It does. I just didn't see it in the list for some reason.

Thanks!