methods to parse big foreign ascii-file?

Terry Reedy tjreedy at udel.edu
Wed Jun 12 16:45:29 EDT 2002


"holger krekel" <pyth at devel.trillke.net> wrote in message
news:mailman.1023899956.13534.python-list at python.org...
> Hello,
>
> tommorrow i want to convince an old skool C-programmer to
> use python. We are going to make a one-day project :-)
>
> It involves reading 50MB+ files of a strange ascii-format
> containing names, floats and flags all around. These items
> span multiple lines and should be grouped in lists or objects.
>
> How would you go about it? Options that come to my mind:

IF the fields are comma (delimiter) separated, but you need to ignore
commas (delimiters) within "quoted text fields", there is at least one
Python module that should help (including dealing with multiline
fields).  Search google clp archive or ask.  IF not, consider the
other suggestions.

TJR






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