Python read text file columnwise

[Juris __]

Hi!

On 15/01/2019 17:04, Neil Cerutti wrote:
> On 2019-01-11, shibashibani at gmail.com <shibashibani at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello
>>>
>>> I'm very new in python. I have a file in the format:
>>>
>>> 2018-05-31   16:00:00        28.90   81.77   4.3
>>> 2018-05-31   20:32:00        28.17   84.89   4.1
>>> 2018-06-20   04:09:00        27.36   88.01   4.8
>>> 2018-06-20   04:15:00        27.31   87.09   4.7
>>> 2018-06-28   04.07:00        27.87   84.91   5.0
>>> 2018-06-29   00.42:00        32.20   104.61  4.8
>>
>> I would like to read this file in python column-wise.
>>
>> I tried this way but not working ....
>>    event_list = open('seismicity_R023E.txt',"r")
>>      info_event = read(event_list,'%s %s %f %f %f %f\n');
> 
> If it's really tabular data in fixed-width columns you can read
> it that way with Python.
> 
> records = []
> for line in file:
>      record = []
>      i = 0
>      for width in (30, 8, 7, 5): # approximations
>          item = line[i:i+width]
>          record.append(item)
>          i += width
>      records.append(record)
> 
> This leaves them all strings, which in my experience is more
> convenient in practice. You can convert as you go if you
> want,though it won't look nice and simple any longer.
>

Perhaps even better approach is to use csv module from standard library:

import csv

csv_reader = csv.reader(file, dialect="excel-tab")
for row in csv_reader:
     # do something with record data which is conveniently parsed to list
     print(row)

['2018-05-31', '16:00:00', '28.90', '81.77', '4.3']
...
['2018-06-29', '00.42:00', '32.20', '104.61', '4.8']


BR, Juris