These functions attempt to determine if a file is binary or text. In
addition, file.type attempts to determine the newline character(s)
used in the file.
is.file.binary(file, bin.ints = c(1:8, 14:25), nbytes = 1000, nbin = 2)file.type(file, bin.ints = c(1:8, 14:25), nbytes = 1000, nbin = 2)
The path to the file to be examined
List of integers with the ASCII values of control characters that are to be considered when when looking for signs a file is binary. Default includes most ASCII control characters except things like NULL, LF, CR and HT that might actually appear in an ASCII file.
Number of bytes to read in from the beginning of the file.
An integer indicating the threshold on the number of control characters above which a file is considered binary. Defaults to 2.
For is.file.binary, a boolean value is returned, whereas a
list is returned for file.type.
is.file.binary: A boolean that will be TRUE if a file is considered to be
binary.
file.type: Returns a list with up to two elements:
type & newline. type can either by "binary" or
"text". newline will be NULL for binary files,
"\r\n" for DOS formatted text files, "\n" for UNIX
formatted text files and NA_character_ for text files without any
newline characters in the first nbytes of the file.
A file is assessed to be binary using a heuristic based on finding more than
nbin ASCII control (i.e., non-printing) characters in the first
nbytes of the file. This works well for standard ASCII text, but it
may be less effective for complex UTF8 text (e.g., Chinese).
For text files, line endings are assessed by file.type by searching
first for DOS line endings (\r\n) in the first nbytes of the
input file, and then by searching for UNIX line endings (\n). If
neither is found, then NA_character_ is returned for the line ending.
See also platform.newline.