Scan and Read Data from a File in R Programming - scan() Function

scan() function in R Language is used to scan and read data. It is usually used to read data into vector or list or from file in R Language.

Syntax: scan("data.txt", what = "character") Parameter: data.txt: Text file to be scanned Returns: Scanned output

Example 1: Scanning of Text Output :

 x1 x2 x3
1 1 4 8
2 2 5 9
3 2 6 10
4 3 7 11

[1] "/home/cg/root/8121844"

[1] "x1" "x2" "x3" "1" "4" "8" "2" "5" "9" "2" "6" "10" "3" "7" "11"
Read 15 items

  Example 2: Scan data as text Output:

 x1 x2 x3
1 1 4 8
2 2 5 9
3 2 6 10
4 3 7 11
[[1]]
[1] "x1" "1" "2" "2" "3" 

[[2]]
[1] "x2" "4" "5" "6" "7" 

[[3]]
[1] "x3" "8" "9" "10" "11"

Read 5 records

  Example 3: Skip lines with scan function Output:

 x1 x2 x3
1 1 4 8
2 2 5 9
3 2 6 10
4 3 7 11
 [1] 1 4 8 2 5 9 2 6 10 3 7 11
Read 12 items

  Example 4: Scan Excel CSV File Output:

 x1 x2 x3
 x1 x2 x3
1 1 4 8
2 2 5 9
3 2 6 10
4 3 7 11
Read 15 items
 [1] "x1" "x2" "x3" "1" "4" "8" "2" "5" "9" "2" "6" "10" "3" "7" "11"

  Example 5: Read input from the keyboard. Output:

Read 4 items
[1] 1 2 3 4

Here, in the above code, the scan() function will take input from the user and print value using the print() function.