delimiting text file??

[Jim Bruer]

Aahz Maruch wrote:

> In article <7u5da5$pp2$1 at nntp6.u.washington.edu>,
> Donn Cave  <donn at u.washington.edu> wrote:
> >Quoth Gerrit Holl <gerrit.holl at pobox.com>:
> >| Aahz Maruch:
> >[re how to insert comma delimiters]
> >
> >|> delimitedString = string[:x] + "," + string[x:]
> >|>
> >|> That's a rather lame way to do it; as you learn more about Python,
> >|> you'll come across better ways.
> >|
> >| Is it? I think I've learned more about Python than Jim has (already finished
> >| Learning python, and I'm waiting for Programming TkInter with Python now),
> >| but I don't know a better way than this?
> >
> >He may have gauged better than I the original poster's zeal for
> >discovering things on his own, but I was surprised no one mentioned
> >string.join'ing a list of fields in one step.  It's what I consider
> >the normal approach to this common task.  Easier on the eyes, probably
> >faster if there are more than a couple of fields.
>
> Oh, I agree -- but the original poster didn't say anything about a list
> of fields....
> --

Thank you all for your suggestions. I'm impressed with Python and now this
friendly, helpful group.
I will ultimately use my program to delimit files of up to 1.0 million records,
each line composed of 1560 characters to be delimited into 230 fields.