Digit positions in writing files

Hi, list:

I am processing a kind of data which has very strict format on digit
position, ie., for the first column, the last digit should be in column 5,
the second in column 10, and 16, 24, 32 for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th,
respectively. Here is the segment:

? ? ? ?29 ?-999 ?1051 ? 69.58 ? 23.53
? ? ? ?30 ?-999 ?1052 ? 70.67 ? 23.67
? ? ? ?31 ?-999 ?1053 ? 70.68 ? 23.68
? ? ? ?32 ?-999 ?1055 ? 71.10 ? 24.00
? ? ? ? .......
? 13642 -999 97890 ? -7.83 ?129.67
? 13643 ? 30 97900 ? -7.98 ?131.30
? 13644 ?100 97980 ? -8.47 ?140.38
? 13645 ? 66 98132 ? 20.80 ?121.85
? 13646 -999 98133 ? 19.27 ?121.47

My aim is to replace the coordinates of certain rows using new coordinates,
and put the whole file back into the same filee, but it seems that I can
only get constant spaces between each column if I use write.table, with
sep=' '. So, my question is, is there any way that I could get the desired
format? By the way, I have more than 10,000 rows in each file (day), and 365
days for each year, I think for me, R is the only way to do this.

Thanks in advance~

Best regards~

Marco

? ? ? ?[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

Have a look at sprintf

Robert

On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 2:41 AM, ?? <wul1984 at gmail.com> wrote:

Hi, list:

I am processing a kind of data which has very strict format on digit
position, ie., for the first column, the last digit should be in column 5,
the second in column 10, and 16, 24, 32 for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th,
respectively. Here is the segment:

       29  -999  1051   69.58   23.53
       30  -999  1052   70.67   23.67
       31  -999  1053   70.68   23.68
       32  -999  1055   71.10   24.00
        .......
  13642 -999 97890   -7.83  129.67
  13643   30 97900   -7.98  131.30
  13644  100 97980   -8.47  140.38
  13645   66 98132   20.80  121.85
  13646 -999 98133   19.27  121.47

My aim is to replace the coordinates of certain rows using new coordinates,
and put the whole file back into the same filee, but it seems that I can
only get constant spaces between each column if I use write.table, with
sep=' '. So, my question is, is there any way that I could get the desired
format? By the way, I have more than 10,000 rows in each file (day), and 365
days for each year, I think for me, R is the only way to do this.

Thanks in advance~

Best regards~

Marco

       [[alternative HTML version deleted]]