Why the field separator character must be only one byte?

Question

data <- read.delim(\"C:\\\\test.txt\", header = FALSE, sep = \"$$$$$\")
Error in scan(file, what = \"\", sep = sep, quote = quote, nlines = 1, quiet = TRUE,  : 
          


        

Answer 1

Here is a potential solution.

Assuming this is what the lines in your file look like

1$$$$$2$$$$$3$$$$$4

The following will create a matrix with the variables stored as characters.

do.call(rbind,strsplit(readLines('test.txt'),'$$$$$',fixed=T))