Reading Fortran Data

[Beliavsky]

Tyler wrote:
> Hello All:
>
> After trying to find an open source alternative to Matlab (or IDL), I
> am currently getting acquainted with Python and, in particular SciPy,
> NumPy, and Matplotlib. While I await the delivery of Travis Oliphant's
> NumPy manual, I have a quick question (hopefully) regarding how to read
> in Fortran written data.
>
> The data files are not binary, but ASCII text files with no formatting
> and mixed data types (strings, integers, floats). For example, I have
> the following write statements in my Fortran code:

In plain Python, you can read each line in to a string, break the
string into "words" using split, and then convert the words into
variables of the desired types. If you are new to Python, this is an
important idiom to learn. I don't know if NumPy has  facilities to do
this more easily.

> I write the files as such:
>   WRITE(90,'(A30)') fgeo_name
>   WRITE(90,'(A30)') fmed_name

Let me comment on the Fortran code. For the following lines using
list-directed output, the compiler has considerable freedom in how it
writes the output. I guess you expect the integers nfault and npoint to
be written on one line and the vectors xpt and ypt to each be written
on separate lines. The compiler could print each number on a separate
line and be standard-conforming. This does not matter if you are going
to use a Fortran list-directed read to read the file, but it will
matter if you are using other languages. I suggest that you use format
strings to get more control over the ouptput format before you think
about reading the output files in Python. Otherwise you will be trying
to hit a moving target.

<snip>