[R] dealing with a messy dataset

jean-philippe jeanphilippe.fontaine at gssi.infn.it
Thu Oct 5 16:12:20 CEST 2017


dear R-users,


I am facing a quite regular and basic problem when it comes to dealing 
with datasets, but I cannot find any satisfying answer so far.
I have a messy dataset of galaxies like that :

And XVIII          000214.5+450520  0.69 17   9 0.00  -8.7 26.8 6.44  
6.78 < 6.65  -44  0.5 MESSIER031               0.6  1.54
PAndAS-03          000356.4+405319  0.10 17     0.00  -3.6 27.8 
4.38                    2.8 MESSIER031               2.8  1.75
PAndAS-04          000442.9+472142  0.05 22     0.00  -6.6 23.1 
5.59              -108  2.5 MESSIER031               2.5  1.75
PAndAS-05          000524.1+435535  0.06 31     0.00  -4.5 25.6 
4.75               103  2.8 MESSIER031               2.8  1.75
ESO409-015         000531.8-280553  3.00 78  23 0.00 -14.6 24.1 8.10  
8.25   8.10  769 -2.0 NGC0024                 -1.5 -2.05
AGC748778          000634.4+153039  0.61 70   3 0.00 -10.4 24.9 6.39  
5.70   6.64  486 -1.9 NGC0253                 -1.5 -2.72
And XX             000730.7+350756  0.20 33   5 0.00  -5.8 27.1 5.26  
5.70        -182  2.4 MESSIER031               2.4  1.75

What I would like to do is to read this dataset, but I would like that 
the space between And and XVIII is not interpreted as 2 different 
columns but as the name of the galaxy in one column.
How is it possible to do so?

For instance I did this 
data1<-read.table("lvg_table2.txt",skip=70,fill=T) where I used fill=T 
because the rows don't have the same number of features since R splits 
the name of the galaxies into 2 columns because of the space.


Best Regards, thanks in advance


Jean-Philippe Fontaine

-- 
Jean-Philippe Fontaine
PhD Student in Astroparticle Physics,
Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI),
Viale Francesco Crispi 7,
67100 L'Aquila, Italy
Mobile: +393487128593, +33615653774



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