It's so easy (using csv module), no need to build in. You can wrap in a class if you want to make even easier. Same can be done for tables from SQL database.
import csv fp=open(r'C:\test.txt', 'r') # # test.txt contains: # # "record","value1","value2" # "1","2","3" # "2","4","5" # "3","6","7" table=csv.DictReader(fp) for record in table: # # Record is a dictionary with keys as fieldnames # and values of the data in each record # print "record #=%s, value1=%s, value2=%s" % \ (record['record'],record['value1'],record['value2']) fp.close() -Larry Bates York wrote: > Your are right, a program cannot be smarter than its programmer. However > I need a program to parse any table-format data files offered by user. R > offer such a function, I hope python such a function too. > > -York > > >> While it may "attempt" to recognize the types, it in fact cannot >> be more correct than the programmer. Example: >> >> data="""0X1E04 111""" >> >> That "looks" lile a hex and an int. But wait. What if it is >> instead two strings? >> >> In Python you can easily write a class with a interator that can >> read the data from the file/table and return the PROPER data types >> as lists, tuples, or dictionaries that are easy to manipulate. >> >> -Larry Bates >> >> York wrote: >> >>> Hi, >>> >>> R language has very high-level IO functions, its read.table can read a >>> total .csv file and recogonize the types of each column. write.table can >>> do the reverse. >>> >>> R's MySQL interface has high-level functions, too, e.g. dbWriteTable can >>> automatically build a MySQL table and write a table of R data into >>> it. >>> >>> Is there any python packages do similar things? >>> >>> >>> -York -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list