parsing a dbIII file

[Steve Holden]

korovev76 at gmail.com wrote:
> Hello everybody, I'm new to python (...I work with cobol...)
> 
> I have to parse a file (that is a dbIII file) whose stucture look like
> this:
> |string|, |string|, |string that may contain commas inside|, 1, 2, 3, |
> other string|
> 
> Is there anything in python that parses this stuff?
> 
> 
> thanks a lot
> korovev
> 
That's not a standard dBaseIII data file though, correct? It looks more 
like something that was produced *from* a dBaseIII file.

If the format is similar to Excel's CSV format then the csv module from 
Python's standard library may well be what you want. Otherwise there are 
parsers at all levels - one called PyParsing is quite popular, and I am 
sure other readers will have their own suggestions.

I am not sure whether the pipe bars actually appear in your data file, 
so it is difficult to know quite exactly what to suggest, but I would 
play with the file in an interactive interpreter session first to see 
whether csv can do the job.

Good luck with your escape from COBOL!

regards
  Steve
-- 
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