Try this: read.table(pipe("/Rtools/bin/gawk -f cut.awk bigdata.dat"))
where cut.awk contains the single line (assuming you want fields 101 through 110 and none other): { for(i = 101; i <= 110; i++) printf("%s ", $i); printf "\n" } or just use cut. I tried the gawk command above on Windows Vista with an artificial file of 500,000 columns and 2 rows and it seemed instantaneous. On Windows the above uses gawk from Rtools available at: http://www.murdoch-sutherland.com/Rtools/ or you can separately install gawk. Rtools also has cut if you prefer that. On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 2:50 AM, José E. Lozano <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hello, > > > > Recently I have been trying to open a huge database with no success. > > > > It's a 4GB csv plain text file with around 2000 rows and over 500,000 > columns/variables. > > > > I have try with The SAS System, but it reads only around 5000 columns, no > more. R hangs up when opening. > > > > Is there any way to work with "parts" (a set of columns) of this database, > since its impossible to manage it all at once? > > > > Is there any way to establish a link to the csv file and to state the > columns you want to fetch every time you make an analysis? > > > > I've been searching the net, but found little about this topic. > > > > Best regards, > > Jose Lozano > > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > > ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.