Browsing text ; Python the right tool?

[Jeff Shannon]

Paul Kooistra wrote:

> 1. Does anybody now of a generic tool (not necessarily Python based)
> that does the job I've outlined?
> 2. If not, is there some framework or widget in Python I can adapt to
> do what I want?

Not that I know of, but...

> 3. If not, should I consider building all this just from scratch in
> Python - which would probably mean not only learning Python, but some
> other GUI related modules?

This should be pretty easy.  If each record is CRLF terminated, then 
you can get one record at a time simply by iterating over the file 
("for line in open('myfile.dat'): ...").  You can have a dictionary of 
classes or factory functions, one for each record type, keyed off of 
the 2-character identifier.  Each class/factory would know the layout 
of that record type, and return a(n) instance/dictionary with fields 
separated out into attributes/items.

The trickiest part would be in displaying the data; you could 
potentially use COM to insert it into a Word or Excel document, or 
code your own GUI in Python.  The former would be pretty easy if 
you're happy with fairly simple formatting; the latter would require a 
bit more effort, but if you used one of Python's RAD tools (Boa 
Constructor, or maybe PythonCard, as examples) you'd be able to get 
very nice results.

Jeff Shannon
Technician/Programmer
Credit International