\HeaderA{readLines}{Read Text Lines from a Connection}{readLines}
\keyword{file}{readLines}
\keyword{connection}{readLines}
\begin{Description}\relax
Read some or all text lines from a connection.
\end{Description}
\begin{Usage}
\begin{verbatim}
readLines(con = stdin(), n = -1, ok = TRUE, warn = TRUE,
          encoding = "unknown")
\end{verbatim}
\end{Usage}
\begin{Arguments}
\begin{ldescription}
\item[\code{con}] a connection object or a character string.
\item[\code{n}] integer.  The (maximal) number of lines to
read.  Negative values indicate that one should read up to the end of
the connection.
\item[\code{ok}] logical.  Is it OK to reach the end of the connection before
\code{n > 0} lines are read?  If not, an error will be generated.
\item[\code{warn}] logical.  Warn if a text file is missing a final EOL.
\item[\code{encoding}] encoding to be assumed for input strings.  It is
used to mark character strings as known to be in
Latin-1 or UTF-8: it is not used to re-encode the input.  To do the
latter, specify the encoding as part of the connection \code{con} or
via \code{\LinkA{options}{options}(encoding=)}: see the example under
\code{\LinkA{file}{file}}.

\end{ldescription}
\end{Arguments}
\begin{Details}\relax
If the \code{con} is a character string, the function calls
\code{\LinkA{file}{file}} to obtain a file connection which is opened for
the duration of the function call.

If the connection is open it is read from its current position.
If it is not open, it is opened for the duration of the call and then
closed again.

If the final line is incomplete (no final EOL marker) the behaviour
depends on whether the connection is blocking or not.  For a
non-blocking text-mode connection the incomplete line is pushed back,
silently.  For all other connections the line will be accepted, with a
warning. 

Whatever mode the connection is opened in, any of LF, CRLF or CR will
be accepted as the EOL marker for a line.
\end{Details}
\begin{Value}
A character vector of length the number of lines read.

The elements of the result have a declared encoding if \code{encoding} is
\code{"latin1"} or \code{"UTF-8"},
\end{Value}
\begin{Note}\relax
The default connection, \code{\LinkA{stdin}{stdin}}, may be different from
\code{con = "stdin"}: see \code{\LinkA{file}{file}}.
\end{Note}
\begin{SeeAlso}\relax
\code{\LinkA{connections}{connections}}, \code{\LinkA{writeLines}{writeLines}}, \code{\LinkA{readBin}{readBin}},
\code{\LinkA{scan}{scan}}
\end{SeeAlso}
\begin{Examples}
\begin{ExampleCode}
cat("TITLE extra line", "2 3 5 7", "", "11 13 17", file="ex.data",
    sep="\n")
readLines("ex.data", n=-1)
unlink("ex.data") # tidy up

## difference in blocking
cat("123\nabc", file = "test1")
readLines("test1") # line with a warning

con <- file("test1", "r", blocking = FALSE)
readLines(con) # empty
cat(" def\n", file = "test1", append = TRUE)
readLines(con) # gets both
close(con)

unlink("test1") # tidy up

\end{ExampleCode}
\end{Examples}

