Question about simulation design...

Help R list servers,

I have 500 external data sets for a simulation study that I would like 
to bring into R to analyze. They have the names data1.dat, data2.dat, 
..., dataN.dat

Is there a way to automatize the bringing in of these data sets in R 
using the read.table function within a looping cycle?

For example...

for (j in 1:N){
data_"j" = read.table("data"j".dat, header=F)

executable code
.
.
.
}

bring in the next data set.

SAS uses a ampersand "&" to automatize the process.

Example code:

data _NULL_;
    set final;
        filename out "C:\data&k..dat";
        file out;
        put variables;
run;

I would welcome any insight into how to address this issue.

Thank you.
Jeff Harring

**********************************************************
Jeffrey R. Harring, Assistant Professor
Department of Measurement, Statistics & Evaluation (EDMS)
1230 Benjamin Building
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742-1115

Phone: 	301.405.3630
Fax: 	301.314.9245
Email: 	harring at umd.edu
Web:  	http://www.education.umd.edu/EDMS/fac/Harring/webpage.html