[Numpy-discussion] `missing` argument in genfromtxt only a string?

[Pierre GM]

On Sep 14, 2009, at 10:55 PM, Skipper Seabold wrote:
>
> While we're on the subject, the other thing on my wishlist (unless I
> just don't know how to do this) is being able to define a "column map"
> for datasets that have no delimiters.  At first each observation of my
> data was just one long string with no gaps or regular breaks but I
> knew which columns had what.  Eg., the first variable was (not
> zero-indexed) columns 1-6, the second columns 11-15, the third column
> 16, etc.  so I would just say delimiter = [1:6,11:15,16,...].

Fixed-width fields should already be supported. Instead of delimiter= 
[1-6, 7-10, 11-15, 16]..., use delimiter=[6, 4, 4, 1] (that is, just  
give the widths of the fields).
Note that I wouldn't be surprised at all if it failed for some corner  
cases (eg, if you need to read the name from the first line).