Getting pre-existing data into R Manually entering data is only suitable for small data sets. Methods for directly importing other data formats into R are appearing all the time.
Some spreadsheets export numeric fields with embedded spaces.
These usually are translated as factors, which is often not what you want. Text editors may also be used if they have a search and replace facility, by searching for spaces and replacing them with nothing. This is because you can't put a TAB character into the command line. As the file was comma-delimited, the comma was put directly between the quotes. Escape sequences will come in handy quite often.