Converting a text data file from positional to tab delimited.

[Emile van Sebille]

The obvious change is to use a list to collect the fields, then string.join
to build the record.  If you're on 1.5.2, import string first.

See notes below.  HTH

Emile van Sebille
emile at fenx.com

"Lee Joramo" <lee at joramo.com> wrote in message
news:B6D37840.2124%lee at joramo.com...
> I am looking for suggestions to speed up the process of converting a large
<snip>
> inFile = open('rawdata.dat', 'r')
> outFile = open('delimted.dat', 'w')
> while 1:
>     lines = inFile.readlines(1000)
>     if not lines: break
>     for line in lines:

replace this:
>         delimitedLine = ""
with this:
        delimitedLine = []

>         delimit = ""
>         for field in layout:
>             #
>             #can this loop be improved??
>             #

replace this:
>             fieldValue = line[field[1]:field[2]]
>             delimitedLine = delimitedLine + delimit + fieldValue
>             delimit = "\t"
with this:
            outrec.append(line[field[1]:field[2]])

and then replace this:
>         outFile.write(delimitedLine+"\n")
with this:
           outfile.write("\t'.join(outrec)+"\n")
or with 1.5.2:
            outfile.write(string.join(outrec,'\t')+"\n")

> inFile.close()
> outFile.close()
> del lines
>