How to not to terminate read.table if the input file is

read.table terminates the program if the input file is empty. Is there
way to let the program continue and return me a NULL instead of
terminating the program?

$ Rscript read_empty.R

read.table("empty_data.txt")

Error in read.table("empty_data.txt") : no lines available in input
Execution halted
$ cat read_empty.R
read.table("empty_data.txt")
$ cat empty_data.txt; echo EOF
EOF

If I understand the point of your query correctly, the following,
from "?read.table", would be relevant:

Value:
  A data frame (?data.frame?) containing a representation of the
  data in the file.

  Empty input is an error unless "col.names" is specified, when a
  0-row data frame is returned: similarly giving just a header line
  if "header = TRUE" results in a 0-row data frame.  Note that in
  either case the columns will logical unless ?colClasses? was
  supplied.

The result would not be NULL, but can be tested for zero rows.

Hoping this helps,
Ted.

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E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding at manchester.ac.uk>
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Date: 01-Jan-10                                       Time: 20:55:35
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