Import data into R with an unknown number of columns?

Question

I\'m trying to read a text file with different row lengths:

1
1   2
1   2   3
1   2   3   4
1   2   3   4   5
1   2   3   4   5   6
1   2   3   4   5   6   7         


        

Answer 1

There is nice function count.fields (see help) which counts number of column per row:

count.fields("test", sep = "\t")
#[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

So, using your second solution:

no_col <- max(count.fields("test", sep = "\t"))
data <- read.table("test",sep="\t",fill=TRUE,col.names=1:no_col)
data
#   X1 X2 X3 X4 X5 X6 X7 X8
# 1  1 NA NA NA NA NA NA NA
# 2  1  2 NA NA NA NA NA NA
# 3  1  2  3 NA NA NA NA NA
# 4  1  2  3  4 NA NA NA NA
# 5  1  2  3  4  5 NA NA NA
# 6  1  2  3  4  5  6 NA NA
# 7  1  2  3  4  5  6  7 NA
# 8  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8