lines = 'SA 35 1225 LG 37 1369 SH 33 1089 KN 34 1156 DE 38 1444 SH 40 1600 ML 35 1225 JG 36 1296 KH 38 1444 HS 33 1089 LL 28 784 CE 34 1156 KK 47 2209 CW 42 1764 DP 46 2116' con = textConnection( lines ) DF = read.table( con, header=FALSE ) close(con) colnames(DF) = c( 'subject', 'y', 'y2' )