read.table and factors

Dear R People:

Suppose I have the following in a file:

1 1.171504 1.010070
2 -0.9317064 1.860900
3 -0.06522837 0.6561147
4 -1.817026 0.02619137
5 1.426983 0.5995691
6 -0.2844911 1.155561
7 -0.6920972 0.7633124
8 0.3129615 5.121108

I want to use read.table to bring it in and I want the first column to
be a factor.  Is there a way to set up read.table such that the first
column is a factor and the others are numeric, please?

Thanks,
Erin

Erin Hodgess
Associate Professor
Department of Computer and Mathematical Sciences
University of Houston - Downtown
mailto: erinm.hodgess at gmail.com