Read text file with NULL bytes in R

read_delim_nul.R

read_delim_nul <- function(path, encoding = 'utf8', ...) {
    #' Read a delimited text file that contains NULL bytes.
    #'
    #' @param path One or more file paths.
    #' @param encoding File encoding.
    #' @param ... Arguments to read_delim.

    # can process multiple file paths
    if (length(path) > 1) {
        return(
            Reduce(
                function(...) rbind(...),
                lapply(path, read_delim_nul, encoding = encoding, ...)
            )
        )
    }

    data <- readr::read_lines_raw(path)

    # convert raw bytes to strings, ignoring NULL
    data <- sapply(
            data,
            function(x) sys::as_text(x, encoding = encoding, skipNul = T, warn = F)
        )
    data <- as.vector(data, mode = 'character')

    # now parse the data without NULLs
    readr::read_delim(I(data), ...)
}