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\name{count.fields}
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\title{Count the Number of Fields per Line}
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\usage{
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count.fields(file, sep = "", quote = "\"'", skip = 0,
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             blank.lines.skip = TRUE, comment.char = "#")
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}
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\alias{count.fields}
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\arguments{
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  \item{file}{a character string naming an ASCII data file, or a
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    \code{\link{connection}}, which will be opened if necessary,
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    and if so closed at the end of the function call.}
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  \item{sep}{the field separator character.  Values on each line of the
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    file are separated by this character.  By default, arbitrary amounts
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    of whitespace can separate fields.}
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  \item{quote}{the set of quoting characters}
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  \item{skip}{the number of lines of the data file to skip before
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    beginning to read data.}
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  \item{blank.lines.skip}{logical: if \code{TRUE} blank lines in the
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    input are ignored.}
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  \item{comment.char}{character: a character vector of length one
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    containing a single character or an empty string.}
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}
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\description{
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  \code{count.fields} counts the number of fields, as separated by
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  \code{sep}, in each of the lines of \code{file} read.
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}
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\details{
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  This used to be used by \code{\link{read.table}} and can still be
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  useful in discovering problems in reading a file by that function.
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  For the handling of comments, see \code{\link{scan}}.
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}
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\value{
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  A vector with the numbers of fields found.
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}
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\seealso{
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  \code{\link{read.table}}
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}
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\examples{
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cat("NAME", "1:John", "2:Paul", file = "foo", sep = "\n")
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count.fields("foo", sep = ":")
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unlink("foo")
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}
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\keyword{file}