Help with language, dev tool selection

[Larry Bates]

1) Python can do this easily
2) No tools required
3) Don't do it the way you describe.

Here's what I would do:

Load the information that you have in the text file
into a MySQL database (MySQL import has tab delimited
as its default so it is easy) and write a few lines of
PHP to serve up the HTML pages dynamically.  I say PHP
and MySQL because almost every Internet Service
Provider installs those tools for free when you host a
website.  If you are self hosting, use Python to create
the pages dynamically as they are required.  Besides,
it will take you almost as long to upload the 30000
html pages to your webserver as to write this entire
application.

-Larry Bates


vasilijepetkovic at yahoo.com wrote:
> I have a problem that I have to solve programmatically and since HTML
> is pretty much the only code I have been exposed to I need an advice on
> how to develop the programmatic solution to the problem I have.
> 
> In the nutshell, it'd be great if you can give me guidance in terms
> of:
> 
> 1)	What programming language to use
> 2)	What development tools to use
> 3)	Tips on how to code the solution
> 
> So, here is my challenge:
> 
> I have a flat text file, 30000 records, each record has two columns,
> the columns are tab separated.
> 
> The file looks like this (approximately)
> 
> Sarajevo	431104-133111
> Mostar		441242-133421
> Zagreb		432322-134423
> 
> 
> The first value is a name of a town, and the second value represent
> longitude-latitude in degrees, minutes and seconds.
> 
> For each record I have to create an html file that will be named as the
> name of the town (i.e. Sarajevo.html). The content of the file will be
> rather simple; in the first row it will contain the header (i.e.
> "This page displays longitude-latitude information") - The second
> row will have the following word: "Grad" - and the third row will
> contain the name of the city and the fourth row will have the
> longitude-latitude info.
> 
> The program also needs to prompt me (before it starts spitting the html
> pages) and ask what test should be entered in line one (I would than
> manually enter "This page displays longitude-latitude information")
> and it also need to prompt me about the text that should be entered in
> line two (I'd go and manually enter "grad").
> 
> I'd greatly appreciate any coment and/or guidance.
> 
> 
> Best,
> 
> Vasilije Petkovic Vasa
>